Apparatus for Cleaning and Handling Seed-Cotton (open access)

Apparatus for Cleaning and Handling Seed-Cotton

Patent for "improved means for conveying seed-cotton from wagons or store-houses to a series of gins, to clean it during its passage, and to avoid clogging the gins or the devices themselves by rapid feeding of the cotton" (lines 14-18).
Date: November 26, 1889
Creator: Elam, William E.; Thomas, Robert S. & Hardwick, Sauny W.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Switch Stand for Dynamo Stations. (open access)

Switch Stand for Dynamo Stations.

Patent for a new and improved switch stand for dynamo stations. This design "is to provide a simple and efficient switch for introducing dynamos into an electric circuit and removing them therefrom . . . [The] invention consists in . . . outside circuit-wires . . . switch contacts arranged in pairs, there being as many pairs of such contacts as there are dynamos belonging to the circuit. It also consists[,] . . . with the pairs of contacts, of corresponding pairs of swinging arms, the arms of each pair being insulated from each other and adapted to engage the contacts of the outside circuit" (lines 14-27).
Date: March 26, 1889
Creator: Stewart, Robert Edward
System: The Portal to Texas History
Saw Jointer. (open access)

Saw Jointer.

Patent for a new and improved saw-jointer. This design consists in "two casts having longitudinal triangular grooves upon their inner facing sides, having the lower portions of their inner facing sides cut away to form a longitudinal groove, and having the upper portions of their inner facing sides bulged to form longitudinal halves of a socket, with a screw passing through the castings in the space between the bulged socket portions and the longitudinal grooves, the said grooves being adapted to receive a triangular file having its lower face at right angles to the sides of the groove" (lines 64-76).
Date: May 26, 1885
Creator: Fitzpatrick, Francis B.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Door Check. (open access)

Door Check.

Patent for a new and improved door check. This design "consists in a sliding spring-bolt held in the upper edge of the door, combined with a curved notched frame, projecting from the door-frame, into the notches of which frame the end of the bolt can pass to hold the door in the desired potion. The sliding bolt is connected . . . [to] a crank-arm formed on one end of a spindle, provided on the opposite end with a handle-knob, the crank arm of which spindle can be adjusted to lock the spring-bolt" (lines 11-21).
Date: June 26, 1883
Creator: McCurdy, Thomas B.
System: The Portal to Texas History