Béla Gerster

Béla Gerster (* October 20, 1850 - † August 3, 1923) was a Hungarian engineer and canal architect. He took part in an early expedition to determine the route of the Panama Canal, and was the chief engineer of the Corinth Canal. Béla Gerster was born in 1850 at Kassa (Kaschau/Košice), (then in the Habsburg Empire, at present in Slovakia) . He graduated from the Vienna University of Technology and he also started his profession in this city as a civil engineer. He was a respected expert on water constructions. He accompanied Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps and István Türr in an early international expedition in 1876 with the task to locate the most suitable route of an interoceanic canal. He proposed an area between Panama and Colón. After...