Cotton Picker's Wagon. (open access)

Cotton Picker's Wagon.

Patent for a new and improved wagon for cotton pickers. This design "consists in a suitable frame-work supported on wheels and covered on top by canvas or other suitable material to protect the pickers from the rays of the sun or from the rain, and on one or both sides of the frame, preferably both, is a trough for receiving the picked cotton" (lines 10-16).
Date: February 21, 1882
Creator: Collins, Charles P.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Combined Corn and Cotton Planter, Cultivator, and Cotton-Chopper (open access)

Combined Corn and Cotton Planter, Cultivator, and Cotton-Chopper

Patent for an improvement to the Combined Corn and Cotton Planter, Cultivator and Cotton-Chopper with detailed illustrations.
Date: February 21, 1888
Creator: Carley, John W.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Car-Coupling (open access)

Car-Coupling

Patent for an improvement to automatic car couplings with detail description and illustrations.
Date: February 21, 1888
Creator: King, Charles R.; Aten, Aaron P. & Floyd, William B.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Wagon Brake. (open access)

Wagon Brake.

Patent for a new and improved wagon brake. This design consists "[i]n the brake-beams pivoted in the clamp, in combination with the bent rods, castings, brake-blocks, and lever" (lines 87-89).
Date: February 21, 1882
Creator: Zellers, Robert Emanuel
System: The Portal to Texas History
Window Frame. (open access)

Window Frame.

Patent for a new and improved window frame. This design "has for its objects to provide an improved means for holding the sash of a window in any position to which it may be elevated, and at the same time permit the sash to be readily moved up or down" (lines 11-15).
Date: February 21, 1882
Creator: Sturm, William
System: The Portal to Texas History
Store Counter. (open access)

Store Counter.

Patent for a new and improved store counter. This design "consists in the construction and novel arrangement of the horizontal slideways in the lower portion of the counter extending from front to rear, the rectangular slide-frames working therein, and the angular boxes pivoted by their lower and middle portions to the slide-frames and reversible therein by a rocking movement" (lines 17-24).
Date: February 21, 1882
Creator: Conrad, William Jenkens
System: The Portal to Texas History
Spark Arrester. (open access)

Spark Arrester.

Patent for a new and improved spark arrester for train smokestacks. This design is of "a locomotive-engine, a pipe or pipes for conveying sparks from the smoke-stack, in combination of a diaphragm or cone placed in the stack and a steam or water chamber placed around the discharge of said pipe or pipes" (lines 88-93).
Date: February 21, 1882
Creator: Nichols, George B.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Fertilizer. (open access)

Fertilizer.

Patent for improvements in fertilizers “for restoring to the soil the elements which form the food for plants, and which have been abstracted therefore by the absorption of successive crops, or which are naturally deficient in quantity or entirely wanting in the soil.” (Lines 12-16) Instructions on preparing the fertilizers and ingredients are included. No illustration.
Date: February 21, 1882
Creator: Elsasser, Isaac
System: The Portal to Texas History
Railroad Switch. (open access)

Railroad Switch.

Patent for a new and improved railroad switch. This design "has for its object to provide a simple, inexpensive, efficient, and safe switch adapted for operation by trip-bars on a locomotive engine or car to open or close the switch, and without injury to the rails or actuating mechanism of the switch or danger of derailing the cars" (lines 7-14).
Date: February 21, 1888
Creator: Peetz, John J.
System: The Portal to Texas History