The Medal-Winning Blacksmith of Dayton
How a small-town Washington inventor gained international acclaim from the Parisian Academy of Inventors for a clever sidehill plow design.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
It is with both pleasure and pride that we record the fact that one of our citizens enjoys the proud distinction of being one of the few men in the United States who have been presented, unsolicited, with a grand gold medal and diploma by the Parisian Academy of Inventors, Manufacturers and Exhibitors. The person thus honored is John D. Burkhart, one of our blacksmiths, and the cause of it is his inventive genius which that society considers as possessing extraordinary merit. The invention is a sidehill plow, on which Mr. Burkhart received a patent from the United States government on October 15, 1889.
The medal and diploma were received by mail last Saturday from Paris. Mr. Burkhart’s plow, which may be seen at his shop, is a model implement combining simplicity, strength and utility. In appearance it is like two ordinary plows with their backs together and having only one beam, with the mouldboards being on hinges. Over the middle of the plows there is a pivot on which the beam will revolve; to reverse the plow, one simply raises a small lever, which loosens the clamp and allows the beam to be swung around without moving the plow itself.
From lack of means, Mr. Burkhart has been unable to get them introduced into use, but recently he has made arrangements through Mr. Hanger, manager of the Alliance implement house, to get 100 of them manufactured in St. Louis, Missouri, to be sold on a royalty. This will probably be the means of bringing the invention properly before the public and enable him to reap the just reward of his labor.
“The medal and diploma were received by mail last Saturday, the diploma being dated at Paris, February 20, 1892.”
While Washington’s identity is now dominated by software and aerospace, its foundation was built by local tinkerers like Burkhart. His struggle to scale a hardware invention mirrors the 'valley of death' modern hardware startups in the Pacific Northwest face today when trying to move from a prototype in a shop to mass manufacturing.
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