History
In the early 1920s, Edmond Michel, a French immigrant in New Orleans with a penchant for tinkering and inventing, watched a group of farmers hack away at sugar cane with large machetes. After observing the painstaking labor the workers went through, Michel began experimenting with how to mechanize the Machete. In 1923, Michel created a motorized machete, which had a 6 in. saw-blade mounted on carved wooden frame and powered with a motor taken from malted milk mixer – the first electric handsaw.
After reading about Michel’s new invention, Joseph Sullivan, a Minneapolis land developer, set out to find the New Orleans inventor. After deciding to go into business together, Michel and Sullivan moved to Chicago and opened the Michel Electric Handsaw Co. in 1924.
After forming the company, six production models were made at $1000 each. Michel went to the new Atlantic City’s Million Dollar Boardwalk to demonstrate the new tools, where the first portable electric “Skilsaw” was purchased for $160 by the Piers’ developer.
In 1926, the Skil brand name was born after Michel left the company to pursue other ventures, and Sullivan changed the company name to Skilsaw, Inc.
Read more about this topic: Skil
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