Spencer Van Zandt Cortelyou was born on 17. Feb. 1881 at Harlingen, Somerset County, New Jersey. He was the son of
John Gardner Cortelyou and
Mary Van Zandt. Spencer Van Zandt Cortelyou married
Ruth Powers Messinger, daughter of
Charles Bingley Messinger and
Mary Powers, on 24. Jun. 1909 at Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California.

Spencer Van Zandt Cortelyou was shown in the census on 10. Apr. 1930 as a civil engineer, state highway.
Spencer Van Zandt Cortelyou and
Ruth Powers Messinger appeared on the census of 10. Apr. 1930 at Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California; real estate value 10,000.00. Spencer Van Zandt Cortelyou resided at at Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, California. He was the Distrct Engineer, Division of Highways, State of California. He died on 9. Aug. 1962 at Los Angeles County, California, at age 81.
He received his degree, B. S. in Civil Engineering, from the University of Nebraska in June, 1902. During his four-year course he had been a member of the "varsity" football, basketball, and baseball teams. He took post-graduate work in the fall of 1902 and played his fifth season on the U. of N. football team, a perfectly legal procedure in those days.
From July, 1903 to December, 1907, he was in the Philippines with the Insular Government as surveyor, supervisor of Pampamga Province, district engineer of the 4th district and later of the 11th and 12th districts, and in 1907 as Acting First Assistant Director of Public Works of Manila. The next year he was engaged in private engineering work in the Imperial Valley and in Los Angeles. The following three years he was with the Los Angeles County Highway Commission, as chief of party, chief surveyor, and assistant chief engineer. Since February, 1912, he has been with the California Division of Highways. He was assistant district engineer until 1922, and since 1922 has been district engineer of the Los Angeles district.
Spencer V. Cortelyou originated and has carried through at least three notable engineering projects in the Los Angeles district, as noted below :
1. Just north of Santa Monica canyon the ocean had already washed away most of the beach (prior to 1934) and at high tide the breakers were menacing the existing highway. The following is made up of extracts from an article in the Los Angeles Times of March 18, 1934.
"Twenty months ago the pounding waves of high tide were washing up against and cutting under the highway there, the famous Coast Highway. There wasn't a vestige of beach along all that 3333-foot stretch of State-owned shore line.
"The State is proud of that highway, knows its tremendous value. S. V. Cortelyou, State Highway District Engineer, wanted to save the road but he didn't defy Old Man Ocean; he just gave him a hint, an affable engineering tip.
Engineer Cortelyou had five staunch barriers-their technical name is groins-built out 200 feet seaward from the shore, each groin 500 feet apart from its neighbor groins.
"Old Man Ocean couldn't batter those groins to bits-they're made of interlocking sheet-steel piling. So very obligingly and steadily he began piling sand against them-a million times more sand than there is rice in China. And presto !-there has appeared that fine new beach, a veritable gift from Old Man Ocean, who still is extending the beach width, a remarkable demonstration, one of the foremost on record, of what can be done to increase beach space along many a mile of the Los Angeles costal line.
"The entire cost of those groins was only about $30,000. The value of the new strand is inestimable."
2. The second project is described in the January, 1938, issue of Southern California Business. Some extracts from that article follow.
"From all over the country, and the globe, engineers come to California to study what is declared to be the world's finest mountain high-way and the busiest.
"This is the Ridge Route Alternate, leading from the San Joaquin Valley down into Los Angeles, over which a constant stream of produce comes to this great consuming center. Reciprocally, a constant stream of Los Angeles products goes up into the Valley.
"This new route was born in the mind of a Los Angeles engineer, who envolved the plan, supervised the construction, and even found the necessary money."
Back in 1912, when funds of the first state highway bonds became available, two routes to connect the San Joaquin Valley with Southern California were under consideration. The first, following the Southern Pacific railway eastward, could be constructed with ease. The other, known as the ridge route, would be more difficult to construct and costlier but would be fifty miles shorter. The commissioners decided upon the second, and the two-lane road was constructed. Over this one could travel by car between Los Angeles and Bakersfield in much shorter time than the fastest passenger trains running between the two cities required.
"But though improvements were constantly made on this road with the passing years, great increase of traffic required a new and better road along another route.
"At that point, the plans for the Ridge Route Alternate were developed in the mind of S. V. Cortelyou, district engineer of the State Highway Commission.
"Construction was begun, and completed in the fall of 1933, and this section of highway will long stand as a monument to the engineering ability of Mr. Cortelyou. It is probably the finest piece of mountain highway ever constructed."
According to a survey made by the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads several years ago, the Ridge Route Alternate is the heaviest freight traffic highway in the western half of the United States. It lies within Los Angeles County between Gorham and Castaic.
The new route is nearly ten miles shorter than the old and has only seven percent as much curvature as the old. Its highest elevation is 684 feet lower than that of the old route. Its minimum radius of curvature is 1000 feet while the old route had a 70-foot minimum. Its total rise is 3450 feet compared with a 4630-foot total rise on the old route. The new route has adverse grade of 1040 feet compared with 2220 feet of adverse grade on the old. And the width of its roadbed is 38 feet while the width of the roadbed on the old route was 21 to 24 feet.
The total cost of the Ridge Route Alternate-26.85 miles in length-was $2,900,000. The annual saving in the cost of operation of vehicles on the new route as compared with the old is computed at $1,369,000. The total annual saving capitalized at 5 percent is $27,380,000, or nine and one-half times the cost of the Ridge Route Alternate.
3. The third project referred to is treated somewhat humorously in a Los Angeles paper published about January 1, 1941, as follows:
"S. V. Cortelyou's baby put on long pants yesterday. At least that might be one way of looking at it. Anyway, the Arroyo Seco Parkway opened with a lot of ribbon-cutting and one thing and another. And the Arroyo Seco Parkway definitely was and is the baby of S. V. Cortelyou, district engineer of the State Highway Department and as fine a gentleman as ever studied a blueprint. Mr. Cortelyou had stayed up nights with the parkway, given it soothing syrup, changed its diapers, fed it with a baby spoon, coddled it, prayed over it and battled for it. He had fought bottle-necks, legal barriers and railroad crossings, tried to placate irate ladies, combated rose-petal dinners of lobbyists in Sacramento, campaigned in local elections and done everything but the Highland Fling to make the parkway project go through. . . . And so at last after years of struggle he saw it come true-a divided-lane, intersectionless, high-speed, straightway connecting link between down-town Los Angeles (or at least the Figueroa Street tunnels) and the foot of Broadway in Pasadena, running smack dab up the Arroyo Seco of song and story."