John Froehlich
John Froehlich (also Froelich ) (born August 9, 1849 , † May 23, 1933 in St. Paul , Minnesota ) was a German-born, American inventor.
Life
John was the son of the German emigrants Johannes Heinrich (Henry) Froelich (* 1813 in Kassel) and Kathryn Gutheil, who settled in Clayton County , Iowa in 1847 . He took classes at the College of Iowa, where he studied mechanical engineering. After graduating from college, he set out to build a gasoline-powered tractor for agriculture. Until then, tractors had been powered by heavy steam engines.
Together with William Mann, he was able to realize this construction by 1892. After the completion of the 16 hp tractor, the two designers brought their machine to Langford , South Dakota , where they connected it to a threshing machine. They were able to thresh 72,000 bushels of grain in 52 days . In 1893 he founded the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Company with some business people from Waterloo, Iowa .
He sold the invention to Deere & Company in 1918 .
He married after retiring from the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company and moved to Dubuque, Iowa, where he was employed by the Novelty Iron Works. He then worked for his brother Gottlieb and was Vice President of the Henderson-Froelich Manufacturing Company until 1910. This was followed by a position as an investment advisor in St. Paul, Minnesota. He lost his fortune with the stock market crash of 1929. He died of heart failure in St. Paul in 1933.
John Froehlich was inducted into the Iowa Inventors Hall of Fame in 1991
Individual evidence
Web links
- Biography (English).
- The Froelich Tractor (Engl.)
- Image by John Froehlich
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Happy, John |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Froelich, John |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American inventor of German descent |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 9, 1849 |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 23, 1933 |
| Place of death | St. Paul, Minnesota, USA |