Morrison Knudsen

Morrison-Knudsen (MK) was a civil engineering and construction company, with headquarters in the Western United States city of Boise, Idaho.

MK designed and constructed major infrastructure throughout the world and was one of the consortium of firms that built Hoover Dam, the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and many other large projects of American infrastructure.

MK's origins date to 1905, when Harry Morrison (1885–1971) met Morris Knudsen (1862–1943) while working on the construction of the New York Canal (Boise Project) in south-western Idaho. Morrison was a 20-year-old concrete superintendent for the Reclamation Service; Knudsen was a forty-something Nebraska farmer (and Danish immigrant) with a team of horses and a fresno scraper.

Their first venture together was in 1912, on a pump plant in nearby Grand View, for $14,000. They lost money but gained experience. In 1914 MK earned some revenue when they constructed the Three-Mile Falls Dam in Oregon. For several years the firm built irrigation canals, logging roads, and railways. They incorporated in 1923, the year gross revenues topped $1 million. MK reached a significant milestone with its joint venture in the construction of Hoover Dam in 1932-35.

During World War II, MK built airfields, storage depots, and bases throughout the Pacific and built ships along the American West Coast. Japanese forces captured 1,200 workers, including many MK employees, stationed on Midway and Wake Islands in late 1941. After the war MK expanded into a variety of foreign construction fields.

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