Attraction
World’s 1st Bulldozer – Morrowville
In Morrowville, Kansas, a unique outdoor monument commemorates a major advancement in engineering: the World’s First Bulldozer. This historical landmark honors the ingenuity of two local men whose 1923 invention revolutionized the construction and earth-moving industries.
Historical Significance
In 1923, a young Morrowville farmer named James (Jim) Cummings and a draftsman named J. Earl McLeod designed a front-mounted scraper blade for a tractor.
- The Problem: Cummings observed crews manually filling pipeline trenches using horses and wooden slips—a slow and arduous process.
- The Invention: In just three days, they built a prototype that could backfill a trench much faster than horse teams. On its first day, the machine filled 1 1/6 miles of trench, far exceeding the 500–700 feet typically completed by a manual crew.
- The Patent: They filed for a patent on December 18, 1923, which was issued on January 6, 1925, as an “Attachment for Tractors”.
Design and Construction
The original “bulldozer” was far from the massive steel machines of today. It was a crude but effective attachment built from repurposed materials:
- Base Machine: A Fordson tractor.
- The Blade: A large oak board reinforced with iron and fitted with a metal bottom blade.
- Components: The frame utilized Model T parts, and the lifting mechanism used a lever from a John Deere plow and a spring from a windmill.
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