Charles Leonard, like Lord Kelvin, was always thinking of a better way. Perhaps that is why he set that pail of lard in the ice box and forgot about it as his fertile mind wandered. The anguished cry of Mrs. Leonard interrupted his thoughts and when he gazed upon [...]
When the G.E. Monitor Top refrigerator appeared in the 1920’s it was considered to be the first to employ a hermetic compressor. At that same time though, Herbert C. Kellogg of the Liquid Cooler Corporation was also working on a unique hermetic compressor. System manufacturers recognized some of the [...]
Imagine a refrigeration compressor with only three moving parts and no valves. The “Rollator” rotary compressor introduced by Norge in the 1920’s used only three moving parts submersed in oil. Like the reciprocating compressors, it had a piston and a cylinder but instead of the piston moving up and [...]
The Audiffren-Singrun “Dumbbell” refrigeration machine played a part in the development of two of the most popular domestic refrigerators, the Frigidaire and the General Electric “Monitor Top”. Reuben Bechtold and Alfred Mellowes worked at the Fort Wayne General Electric manufacturing plant that made the Audiffren-Singrun refrigerating machines. Mellowes, an engineer, [...]
In the 1930’s meat and produce was moved from farm to market by trailer and cooled by ice. The trip and the cargo space was limited by the amount of ice and the cooling it could provide. Transport posed many challenges that stationary units could not withstand. In particular, [...]
In 1928, John B. Rathbun was the chief Engineer of Utilities Engineering Institute, 3120 N. Clark St., Chicago, Illinois. As an aid to technicians servicing refrigeration equipment in the budding refrigeration industry, the Institute developed a home study training course. As part of that course, Rathbun listed 15 necessary [...]
How far would you go to complete a sale? Well, in the case of Alan Richards, to the top of one of the tallest buildings in Buffalo and then another 40 feet to reach Alvin “Shipwreck” Kelly perched on top of a flagpole in the Summer of 1927. Kelly had [...]
“But an accumulator is not a magic cure-all for every system refrigerant problem. On a field installed system, the selection procedure at best is a somewhat haphazard process which may not always achieve its desired effects.” So stated John Grim of Copeland. Grim John made this statement in 1975 [...]
Was this the man who invented fast food? Louis A.M. Phelan perhaps deserves this distinction or blame for beginning the era of the fast food industry through his invention of the broaster process and by franchising the Zesto Drive-Inns which utilized the Zesto Freeze machines also invented by him. [...]
