Steam Donkey - History

History

John Dolbeer, a founding partner of the Dolbeer and Carson Lumber Company in Eureka, California, invented the logging engine in that city in August 1881. The patent (number: 256553) was issued April 18, 1882. On Dolbeer's first model, a 150-foot, 4½ inch manila rope was wrapped several times around a gypsy head (vertically mounted spool) and attached at the other end to a log.

The invention of the internal-combustion engine led to the development of the diesel-powered tractor crawler, which eventually put an end to the steam donkey. Though some have been preserved in museums, very few are in operating order. A great number still sit abandoned in the forests.

Read more about this topic:  Steam Donkey

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    I am not a literary man.... I am a man of science, and I am interested in that branch of Anthropology which deals with the history of human speech.
    —J.A.H. (James Augustus Henry)

    Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.
    Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)

    The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)