From Shovels to Machines

I promise! Next week I’ll get off snow and cold – we’ve had enough here in Michigan! But last week’s blog on Michigan’s storms made me wonder if there were snowblowers in 1959, and I know some of you like my informational blogs, so I had to check it out.

Before there was snow removal equipment (we won't get into shovels, which have been around since the caveman), people with wagons would switch out the wheels on their carriages for ski-like runners. Then there were horse-drawn, wooden-wedge snowplows (1792). (I am picturing the horses pulling the plow behind them. How did that work for more than 2 feet of snow? Poor horses! What great helpers they have been over the years.) Snow rollers, large, weighted wheels pulled by oxen or horses to smooth out snow, were also used (again those poor animals!).

The first city to use snowplows (1862) was Milwaukee. Seven years later, J. W. Elliot of Toronto designed a rotary snowplow, similar to our modern snowblower, except it was about 15 feet tall since it was made for the front of a train engine. In the early 1920s, car-mounted snowplows were invented by Hans and Even Øveraasen of Norway.

Then the first snowblower (better termed snow thrower) was patented by Robert Carr Harris (Canada, 1870) for railways to use when the snow was too high for the plows. There were others as well who generated ideas, but it was Arthur Sicard, another Canadian who spent over 30 years working on it, who is generally believed to have invented the first practical snow blower in 1925. By 1927, his snowblowers were cleaning off roads in Outremont, Canada. 

The first personal snowblowers were sold in 1952, although I expect they were too costly for most people to purchase. Now snow removal equipment is very sophisticated with GPS, heated blades, electric start, auto-turn, anti-clogging systems, and exceptional clearing widths. It’s amazing how humans continue to improve upon everything that was set up before them. We certainly owe some gratitude to our Canadian inventors in snow removal – and the Norwegians.

So while we can say there were snow blowers in 1959, it is doubtful they were the average person's tool as yet. Stay warm you snow region people! Next week… A warmer blog.

Please be careful! Snow blowers are a leading cause of hand and finger amputations. If it packs up with snow, turn the engine off, disengage the clutch, and clear the snow out with a broom handle or other long tool – not with your hands.

Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia