Collection is open to the public. Collection must be used in Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room. Collection or parts of collection may be stored offsite. Please contact Special Collections and University Archives in advance of your visit to allow for transportation time.
Paper finding aid with additional information is available in Special Collections and University Archives, Paulson Reading Room.
Thomas Matthew Robins was born in Snow Hill, Maryland and graduated from West Point in 1904, as a Second Lieutenant in the Corps of Engineers. He served in Cuba in 1908, and in Manila from 1909 to 1912. During World War I he was the engineer officer at the Hoboken, New Jersey port of embarkation.
By 1929 he was the division engineer of the Southern Pacific Division, headquartered in San Francisco, California; he would later become the division engineer of the Northern Pacific Division in Portland, Oregon. While in Portland, he was in charge of all rivers, harbors, and flood control work, including construction of the Bonneville Dam. He was later stationed at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, and became Deputy Chief of Engineers. He retired in 1945, and did private consulting work.
Collection consists of engineering project and research files, which include correspondence, legislation, drawings, reports, and manuscripts. Projects include the Yale Dam, the Pelton hydroelectric development, and the dams of the Idaho Power Company. Also included are reports by commissions, corporations, and associations, including the National Water Conservation Conference, Pacific Northwest Development Association, National Reclamation Association, and Interstate Compact Commission. The correspondence is largely official in nature (1931-1945), except for an exchange of about three hundred letters, 1913-1919, between Robins and Eleanor Reifsnider, who would later become Mrs. Thomas M. Robins.