For five years after Emily’s death he lived alone with the house and servants. The wire business in this time became the biggest in the world. The demand seemed unending—for telegraph wire, baling wire, electrical wire, for wire cloth, for bridge cable wire, for the construction of the Panama Canal, for wire rope for cable roads, coal mines, ships, oil rigs, logging machinery, tramways, elevators. The Otis Elevator Company was buying nearly all its cable from the Roeblings. The sons of John A. Roebling had become millionaires many times over. Washington Roebling’s own estate would be
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