Ice-Machine (open access)

Ice-Machine

Patent for an icebox that can be combined with a refrigerator. The icebox will spray the ammonia compressor coil with water, as well as inducing a forced circulation of water in the icebox's freezing tank.
Date: May 22, 1920
Creator: Grant, Willburn C.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Wire Stretcher (open access)

Wire Stretcher

Patent for an improved wire-stretcher that is able to stretch wires while simultaneously holding the stretched wire during stapling.
Date: June 22, 1915
Creator: Kidd, Burrell L.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Post Hole Auger (open access)

Post Hole Auger

Patent for an improved post-hole digger/auger with multiple blades that cut in a spiral pattern and has the blades adjust and lock on the base. The blade shanks form a cage and keeps dirt from clogging the blades.
Date: May 22, 1915
Creator: Hoover, Orville M. & Ardery, Sarah, J.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Railroad-Tie (open access)

Railroad-Tie

Patent for a railroad-tie. This is a "railroad track supporting device a practically indestructible clamp for the securing of rails" (lines 12-14). Illustration included.
Date: February 22, 1910
Creator: Stephens, William A.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Wrench. (open access)

Wrench.

Patent for a new and improved wrench. This design "consists in the combination of the main bar, which is provided with a head having a suitable recess to catch over nuts, with a sliding head, which has two surfaces to act in connection with opposite ends of the head, but out of line with each other, and a spring-actuated catch, which catches in suitable ratchets made in the main bar, so as to hold the sliding head in position" (lines
Date: May 22, 1883
Creator: Hamrick, Jerome Miller.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Apparatus for Killing Rodents (open access)

Apparatus for Killing Rodents

Patent for an apparatus for killing rodents "that may be used effectively for the destruction of all animals that burrow in the ground; and it consists in a furnace for the generation of sulphurous odors or other suffocating gases and a pump for forcing the gases into the burrows of the animals . . . ."
Date: August 22, 1882
Creator: Palmer, Austin D.
System: The Portal to Texas History