Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 248, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 October 1918 — First Automobile Patent. [ARTICLE]

First Automobile Patent.

The first application for a patent for an automobile was- filed in the United Btates patent Office by George B. Selden, 39 years ago. Selden was a patent lawyer in Rochester, N. Y„ when he first began to experiment with the idea of a vehicle propelled by a gasoline engine. Considering that his “road engine” was not yet perfected and that the times were not ripe for It, he secured delay after delay, and the patent was not definitely issued until 1895. From the first, doubts were cast on the validity of the Selden patent, but it earned a fortune for the astute inventor-attorney and tor a long time dominated the motor' car industry of the United States.