Oliver Evans, a mechanical genius from Newport,
Delaware, experimented with many inventions. In 1783 he developed a way to automate
flour mills that would eliminate much backbreaking labor. He built a demonstration
mill on the Red Clay Creek in 1784. After seeing that Evans's system would work,
the Brandywine millers installed it in their mills. Conveyors, bucket
elevators, hopper bags, and gravity moved the grain through the milling process
automatically. The worker's only job was to start and stop the machinery.
Evans never profited from his
inventions. His book, The Young
Millwright and Millers Guide (1795), made his milling innovations available to all.
He experimented with high-pressure steam engines that were ahead of their time when
Evans invented them, but were later used on Mississippi River steamboats.
Oliver Evans