Local Inventors Celebrated in New Exhibit
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Local Inventors Celebrated in New Exhibit -
Charles Blaschke, a blacksmith from Schulenburg patented several inventions including a device to remove heels from boots, pictured left. John Benthall of Schulenburg invented a “cotton-picking shade,” right, a type of tent on wheels intended to relieve workers picking cotton in hot fields.
Inventors in Fayette County filed more than 150 patents between 1869 through 1920. Many of these inventions sprung from the minds of early settlers looking for ways to ease the toil of everyday life.
The Fayette County Museum and Archives in La Grange recently unveiled an exhibit showcasing some of these intriguing contraptions.
Given Fayette County’s agricultural heritage, it comes as no surprise that many of these inventions were for farm equipment. Lots of these early settlers tinkered with improvements to plows, cultivators and planters. John C. Benthall of Schulenburg contrived a most interesting device in 1880: a cotton-picking shade. It was a sort of portable tent on wheels that could be pushed down the rows of a cotton field during picking time. A bag of cotton could be suspended from the roof.
“The apparatus is very useful and convenient, as it obviates the danger to health from working in the sun, and serves also as a protection from rain,” Benthall wrote in his patent application. “The shade also tends to render the work more thorough, as the pickers will naturally strip the enclosed plants instead of hurrying through the rows.”
Ignatz Krenek, an immigrant from Moravia who settled at Live Oak Hill, built the first steam-driven cotton gin in the County. He also patented a sawmill that could be powered by a windmill. It provided a means of feeding the log into the saw by using gravity.
The exhibit includes a father-and-son team, John Christian Baumgarten and Gus Baumgarten of Schulenburg. The two men patented several inventions for processing cotton seed oil and flour. The Baumgartens’ oil and flour mills were once wellknown throughout the nation.
Archivist Rox Ann Johnson said the earliest invention was a washing machine from 1869. Some of the more recent inventions in the collection are related to the Stanzel Model Airplane Company of Schulenburg.
Johnson said the Museum obtained several physical artifacts related to some of the patents, including molds for parts, reproductions and in some cases physical examples of the inventions themselves. Several of these are on display in the exhibit. Johnson said the patent exhibit will remain up until early fall. The Fayette County Museum and Archives is located at 855 S. Jefferson St. The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday. For more information call (979) 968-3765.