John Froelich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Froelich (August 9, 1849–May 23, 1933) was an American inventor who lived in Clayton County, Iowa, and invented the first gasoline/petrol-powered tractor in 1892.[1][2][3]
John Froelich attended school at the College of Iowa. There he learned a lot about machinery. After college, he decided he would build the very first gasoline powered tractor to go both forward and reverse.
Designed by Mann and himself, Froelich was able to build a 16 horsepower (12 kW) tractor that could go both forward and backward by the year 1892. After completing the tractor Froelich and Mann brought it to Langford, South Dakota, where they would connect it to a J.I. Case threshing machine, and thresh 72,000 bushels in 52 days.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ "Gasoline Tractor". Iowa Pathways. http://www.iptv.org/iowapathways/mypath.cfm?ounid=ob_000058.
- ^ "From Steam to Gasoline…". Inspired Media. http://theinspiredmedia.com/2009/08/from-steam-to-gasoline/.
- ^ John Froelich: The Story of a Man and a Tractor. Voyaguer Press, Inc.. http://books.google.com/books?id=3cJeffKoriEC&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=john+froelich+tractor&source=bl&ots=bsYPJH1NF9&sig=4In0Yg1y3YwJ7_blPswDjnhReMo&hl=en&ei=-ApETP-ZAsH88AaW7Zz7DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=john%20froelich%20tractor&f=false.
