In 1887, Frederick Blackburn Pelham became the first Black student to earn an engineering degree from the University of Michigan. 

His career, though brief, produced durable contributions to Michigan’s infrastructure, including one of the state’s first underpasses, still in use more than a century later.

Pelham was born in Detroit in 1864, the youngest of seven children. He attended city public schools, graduating with honors from Detroit High School. At U-M, he became president of his class and earned his history-making Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering.

After graduation, Pelham worked for the Michigan Central Railroad, where he was eventually promoted to assistant engineer.

In that role, Pelham designed approximately 18 to 20 small bridges and culverts throughout southeastern Michigan. Two of the most notable still exist today: in Dexter, a bridge that spans Mill Creek, and an underpass, completed around 1890, built to carry traffic on Dexter-Pinckney Road beneath railroad tracks.

The underpass includes a “skew-arch,” which means the bridge is not perpendicular to the crossing. The bridge’s limestone arch has a low, narrow passageway that has trapped more than one unsuspecting truck. Because of the tight squeeze, most drivers prefer to take turns passing through.

Pelham’s professional career lasted less than a decade — he died of acute pneumonia in Detroit at the age of 30 in 1895. But his legacy endures.

In 2019, the College of Engineering began the Pelham Scholars Program within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to support graduate students from underrepresented backgrounds pursuing advanced study in engineering.

— Genevieve Monsma, The University Record