Animal-Trap. (open access)

Animal-Trap.

Patent for an improved animal trap that can catch a large variety of animals, including fish, and does not injure the animals. Bait is placed in the trap, and the door on one end is spring-activated. A hinged door on the top is where the operator can take out the animal.
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Crockett, William E. & McAdams, Richard E.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Clothes-Pounder. (open access)

Clothes-Pounder.

Patent for a simple and inexpensive clothes pounder that has a conical casing, interior concentric partition, and equal draft and suction. The casing is divided into two compartments, but the divider has openings for air and suds.
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Ware, William P.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Cattle-Guard. (open access)

Cattle-Guard.

Patent for a simple cattle guard for railroads "which may be applied conveniently and economically to a cattle gap, and which will prevent cattle from getting their legs caught between the sleepers above the gap, which will also prevent cattle from passing over the gap, and which will frighten the cattle from the track" (lines 16-22).
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Hills, Lorenzo
System: The Portal to Texas History
Coin-Controlled Apparatus. (open access)

Coin-Controlled Apparatus.

Patent for a simple, inexpensive, and durable coin-controlled apparatus that is "designed to indicate by the varying positions occupied by the spheres, the nature of a dream, the apparatus being designed primarily as a dream-revealer" (lines 17-20). The operator pulls a lever which forces the dice inside the glass container to move into holes. The operator reads a key on the outside of the device that indicates what he will dream.
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Taylor, James P.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Twin Cultivating-Harrow. (open access)

Twin Cultivating-Harrow.

Patent for a twin cultivating harrow with an especially designed coupling that connects the harrow frames. It is adjustable and is meant to cultivate corn, cotton, and similar crops.
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Waldrip, Thomas A.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Saw-Hammering Machine. (open access)

Saw-Hammering Machine.

Patent for a simple hammering machine for circular saws that "carries the saw in such a way that it may be held at any necessary or desired angle to suit the operator, which has a sliding anvil adapted to be adjusted so as to come opposite the various parts of the saw, which is provided with an adjustable hammer adapted to be brought opposite the anvil, which is constructed so as to cause a blow to expand both sides of the saw equally, and which in general is intended to facilitate the quick and efficient hammering of a saw" (lines 12-23).
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Dillon, Thomas H.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Design for a Badge. (open access)

Design for a Badge.

Patent for design for a badge.
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Edwards, Charles L.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Car-Coupling. (open access)

Car-Coupling.

Patent for an improved car coupling that can be operated without going between cars. The coupling facilitates "the coupling of cars having drawheads at the same and different heights by readily guiding the link of one of them into the other" (lines 14-17).
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Norcross, George A.
System: The Portal to Texas History
Bale-Wiring Tool. (open access)

Bale-Wiring Tool.

Patent for a bale wiring tool that "consists of a shank of proper length and diameter, with wire clamping and cutting mechanism on its lower end, and mechanism on its other end to rotate said tool" (lines 23-27). It also has "two independent clamping and cutting jaws, so that one wire can be clamped in the tool, while the other wire can be drawn tight around the bale and then placed in the tool and clamped and cut off, when the tool can be rotated by a brace or by a rack and pinion...and the wire twisted to form a tie" (lines 28-35).
Date: July 18, 1893
Creator: Schubert, George
System: The Portal to Texas History