Ray Harroun 1879-1968 |
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Crawford County Native Won the First Indy 500
Location:
Spartansburg, PA 16434, USA
Saturday, May 21, 2016
Steel, Concrete, and Politics: A History of the Mead Avenue Bridge
The architectural beauty of the Mead Avenue Bridge in modern times |
Labels:
1870's,
1910's,
Local Industry,
Meadville,
What Might Have Been
Location:
Meadville, PA 16335, USA
Sunday, May 15, 2016
The Story of James Densmore and the First Typewriter
James Densmore |
As you string out words into strings of sentences across the screen of your computer, tablet, or mobile phone, know that the keyboard layout we have all become so familiar was conceived in Crawford County. The story behind this claim begins with a man named James Densmore and the invention of the first typewriter.
James was one of seven children who arrived in Meadville when their father, Joel, moved the family from Rochester, New York in 1836 to open a water-powered plant for making wooden bowls. Despite having less than a year of formal schooling, Joel had educated himself so well that he engineered the machinery needed for his plant and could even accurately predict the various eclipses that occurred in the area. It was this grasp of mathematics and mechanics that Joel would pass along to James and his brothers.
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