Horst Ueblacker, who came to Colorado to help build the Eisenhower Tunnel, died of cardiac arrest March 3. He was 71.
Private services were held.
Ueblacker, an engineer who earned his degree in Austria, worked for an engineering company there. In 1962, workers at the Eisenhower Tunnel were having trouble with the first bore, said his wife, Susan Ueblacker.
They contacted the Austrian company, which sent Ueblacker to Colorado. He worked on the tunnel during the day and took graduate classes at Colorado School of Mines at night.
“He was a geo-technical engineer, or rock mechanic, as they call them,” his wife said.
It was the rock mechanic’s job to find out where and how to drill.
“He was a very brilliant man,” said Dick Prosence, who worked for the Colorado Department of Transportation at the time. “He was so smart that sometimes he talked over people’s heads.”
After a while, Ueblacker opened his own business.
Several Colorado tunnels are now built with curving walls because of Ueblacker, Prosence said.
“He’d been involved in European tunnels. Those with curved walls hold more weight and are more aesthetically pleasing,” Prosence said.
Prosence said CDOT hired Ueblacker for other jobs.
In addition to the Eisenhower Tunnel, the work Ueblacker was most proud of was on the Glenwood Canyon project, his wife said.
Horst Ueblacker was born in the Czech Republic on May 19, 1939. He, his mother and his brother fled when Adolf Hitler’s forces moved in. The family went to Austria, where they had relatives.
He and his first wife, Sigrid Ueblacker, had four children.
He married Susan Jones on Jan. 21, 1993.
In addition to her, he is survived by two sons, Gernot Ueblacker of California and Walter Ueblacker of Denver; two daughters, Elke Edwards of Norman, Okla., and Sabina Ueblacker of Denver; and his brother, Peter Ueblacker, who lives in Austria.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
