1857 : Birth of an inventor
Automotive pioneer Elwood Haynes was born on this day in Portland, Indiana. After training as an engineer and a chemist at John Hopkins University, Haynes returned to his native Indiana and began experimenting on a carriage powered by an internal engine. In 1894, he completed construction on one of America's earliest automobiles, a one-horsepower, one-cylinder vehicle, and on Independence Day of that year drove it through the streets of Kokomo, Indiana, on its trial run. Today, this automobile is preserved in the Smithsonian Institution as the oldest U.S. automobile in existence. For the next few decades, Haynes continued to make improvements to the new science of automobile manufacturing, including a successful carburetor, the first use of aluminum in automobile engines, and the first muffler.
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