Leah Moncure, P.E.
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(June 7, 1904 - January 17, 1972) As the Texas Highway Department's first female engineer, Leah Moncure, P.E., broke barriers at a time when the engineering field was dominated by men. Leah was born in Bastrop to Cassius Lee (C.L.) Moncure, a Bastrop County Surveyor and a civil engineer, and Hattie Nuckols Moncure. The family moved into a house on Main Street in 1911. At an early age, Leah showed an interest in the surveying profession and became familiar with tools, materials and methods, often acting as a draftsman for her father. Early on, doctors predicted that Leah would not grow into adulthood as she was born with a congenital heart defect. However, Leah persevered. She graduated in 1925 from Baylor University with high honors and a double major in mathematics and education. As she looked for an engineering opportunity, she found her options limited. Moncure taught in Houston for a year before working for a consulting firm. Realizing that she needed a degree in civil engineering to pursue the career of her dreams, Leah enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), School of Engineering and graduated in 1937. On April 22, 1938, Leah Moncure became Engineer No. 2250, the state's first woman to register as a professional engineer and the only licensed female for a number of years. Moncure also became the first female life member of the National Society of Professional Engineers. Moncure worked for the Texas Highway Department for 32 years, specializing in research, right-of-way, and road design in east Texas and Austin. Leah retired in 1964 and moved back to her childhood home on Main Street. In 1965, a scholarship for female engineering students at UT Austin was established in her name. Moncure died in 1972 and is buried in Bastrop's Fairview Cemetery. (2020)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In an era when engineering was almost entirely a man's profession, Leah Moncure of Bastrop apprenticed at her surveyor father's side, earned a civil engineering degree from UT Austin, and in 1938 became the first woman in Texas to register as a professional engineer. Born with a congenital heart condition doctors thought she wouldn't survive, she instead built a 32-year career with the Texas Highway Department in research, right-of-way, and road design. A UT scholarship in her name still supports women studying engineering.
Why it matters
Moncure's licensure broke a professional barrier decades before the women's movement, opening the door for generations of women in a field that shaped how Americans move across the country.
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Related people
- · Leah Moncure
- · C.L. Moncure
Themes & tags
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