Julius H. Kroehl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Julius Kröhl (in English his name is written Kroehl) was an American inventor of German descent. He built the Sub Marine Explorer, an early submarine, technically advanced for her age, but destined to failure, because of decompression sickness, which was unknown at the time.

Kröhl was born 1820 in Memel, East Prussia (today Klaipėda in Lithuania). He emigrated near 1838 to America, where he became an American citizen in 1840. Worked in the 1850s as engineer in Lower Manhattan. Married Sophia Leuber in 1858. In 1863 soldier for the navy of the Union in the American Civil War.

1864 Kröhl became chief engineer and partner of the Pacific Pearl Company. He built the Sub Marine Explorer in 1865. Kröhl died on September 9, 1867 in Panama City, Panama, of decompression sickness, during experimental dives with the Sub Marine Explorer.