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Nebraska Centennial Streamgage
Platte River at Duncan (06774000)

Sections: Home | Timeline:
Highlights at the Platte River at Duncan streamgage since 1895.Timeline | Historic photos:
View historic pictures of the Platte River at Duncan.Historic photos | NWIS data
USGS's National Water Information System.NWIS data | Trends:
View hydrologic trends.Trends | O.V.P. Stout:
O.V.P. Stout establishes a streamgage and is a pioneer in water science.O.V.P. Stout | Directions to site:
Here are directions and maps to the Duncan siteDirections to site

Oscar Van Pelt Stout

Streamflow discharges at most gaging stations are determined by relating automatically recorded measurements of stage (water surface height) to periodic manual measurements of discharge (rate of flow) using stage–discharge relations called ratings. Most stream channels in Nebraska are composed of sand and silt that scour and fill easily and result in frequent corresponding rating changes. To eliminate the time-consuming task of preparing numerous ratings, about 1900 Professor O.V.P. Stout of the University of Nebraska developed a computation method—now widely used by the U.S. Geological Survey—that instead uses a series of adjustments, called shifts, to compute discharge records from a single rating.

Oscar Van Pelt Stout was born near Jerseyville, Illinois in 1865 but raised in Nebraska. He graduated from the high school at Beatrice and received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Nebraska in 1888. He served as City Engineer of Beatrice (1890-1891) but later returned to the University of Nebraska as an instructor of civil engineering. He became head of the department in 1893 and became the University's first teacher of agricultural engineering in 1895. Stout received his professional engineering degree in 1907 and became Dean of the College of Engineering in 1912. He left the University in 1920 to follow his chosen specialty, irrigation engineering.

Civil Engineer Extraordinaire

Publication

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• Water Supply in Nebraska (PDF)
• Volume 41 of Nebraska Agri. Exp. Station Bulletin
• Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station, O.V.P. Stout
• Published: 1895

1895 - Oscar Van Pelt Stout, an Associate Professor in Civil Engineering who specialized in Irrigation Engineering, was hired by the Agricultural Experiment Station to conduct irrigation research. In that year he wrote the Nebraska Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin, No. 41, entitled Water Supply in Nebraska, with extensive information on Western Nebraska and irrigation canals.

He established the Farm Mechanics Department, and later, the Department of Agricultural Engineering. He was the first to use the professional title of Agricultural Engineer. O. V. P. Stout served as Dean of Engineering from 1912-1920, with a leave of absence during WWI. McCormick Gold Medal For his early leadership in developing the profession of Agricultural Engineering, O. V. P. Stout was awarded the first McCormick Gold Medal, the highest award in the American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE). In the citation, he was acknowledged as the father of Agricultural Engineering.

UNL Engineers Learn in Stout Hall

In the 1890's few programs of study were as successful as the emerging fields in Engineering. Housed in Nebraska Hall and other small buildings on the north side of the original campus, these programs saw ever increasing enrollments with each new semester. Mechanic Arts Hall was built to house these burgeoning programs.

Mechanical Arts Hall was sited in close proximity to other engineering buildings in the area at that time, including the shops and power house, as well as Nebraska Hall. Building dimensions were 65 feet (north to south), by 125 feet (east to west). In addition to a lecture room there was a shop, a photometry laboratory, civil engineering testing laboratory, electrical laboratory, a battery room, a standardizing room, a small museum, a library, various engineering offices, the original Experiment Station office (prior to 1900), and domestic science laboratories and classrooms from 1898-1908. The building contained 28 rooms in all.

Mechanic Arts Hall was renamed in honor of Oscar Van Pelt Stout, Dean of the College of Engineering from 1912-1920.

Mr. Stout's Journal

View pages from Mr. Stout's journal.

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