High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Arthur De Wint Foote (1849–1933) was a civil engineer and mining engineer who impacted the development of the American West with his innovative engineering works and entrepreneurial ventures. In northern California in the late 1890s, he designed and built the North Star Mine Powerhouse, the highest capacity impulse-turbine power-plant of the time, and now a California historic landmark; within that plant he designed and installed the then-largest Pelton wheel turbine. Later, he designed and built Foote`s Crossing, a high bridge, and Foote`s Crossing Road, both now memorialized as California and US landmarks.