James Pugh Kirkwood (27 March 1807 – 22 April 1877) was a 19th-century American
civil engineer, and general superintendent of the
Erie Railroad in the year 1849-1850. He left the Erie to go to the southwest to construct railroads, and he made the first survey for the Pacific Railroad west from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. Late 1860s he served as President of the
American Society of Civil Engineers.