Patent for a new and improved tire tightener. This design consists in "[t]he combination, with the wheel-fellies, one of which has a longitudinal socket, of the overlapping sections secured to the contiguous ends of the tire, and having projecting lugs, an adjusting-bolt carried by one of the lugs and bearing against the other lug, and a protecting-plate having a threaded opening for the passage of the bolt and interposed between the end of the felly in which [a] socket is formed, and the lug adjacent thereto" (lines 80-90).