The Mail-Journal, Volume 21, Number 19, Milford, Kosciusko County, 23 May 1984 — Page 25

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the PAPER - WED., MAY 23,1984

SUMMER

Throw away the oars

(Continued from page 8)

cream freezer to check the contents. He didn’t have to. He knew it had reverted to its original liquid state. The girl he was courting, Bess Cary, was sympathetic, and they enjoyed the sweet liquid together when he made it to shore. But the young man, a Milwaukee mechanic named Ole Evinrude, was still irritated by the incident. To row all that way for melted ice cream! But in 1906, there were but two, reliable ways ,to cross tne iane in a small boat: you either used a sail or you rowed. Two years later Ole Evinrude’s frustration led to his invention of the modern outboard motor, and in 1984 the company he founded, Evinrude Motors, will celebrate its 75th anniversary. In a rather round-about way, everyone who enjoys the relaxation of sport boating today owes a small debt to Ole Evinrude and that hot summer day in 1906. At the age of 23 Ole Evinrude was in Milwaukee working at the pattern shop of the E. P. Allis Company. The year was 1900. William McKinley was just beginning his fateful second > term as president of the United States, and immigrants xyerfe paying as much as sl2 for a trans-Atlantic ticket from Europe to New York’s Ellis Island. Ole lived in the back room of a boarding house, where he set up a workshop in the basement and built a small gasoline engine. Completing it late at night and lacking any gasoline, he connected the engine to the house’s gas supply. The engine worked, but it startled the other residents of the boarding house when it drew all the gas out of the system and extinguished the lights. Ole’s next project wais a home-made automobile, which he used to drive around the streets of Milwaukee. This auto led to a partnership with a man named Clemick to produce gas engines. The firm was a success and received an order for 50 portable engines from the U.S. government. It was at Clemick and Evinrude that Ole met and fell in love with young Bess Cary, a bookkeeper who worked in the evenings. This romance set up the ice cream incident

on Okauchee Lake, located just west of Milwaukee. The disappointment of the melted ice cream led Ole to consider a method of attaching a propeller to a gasoline engine to power a rowboat. In the meantime, Ole had a falling out with several business partners and eventually opened his own patternjnaking shop in Milwaukee. He married Bess in 1907. At the end of the year, their son, Ralph, was born. Ole designed his first outboard motor in 1907. His basic design is still used on most outboards today: a vertical crankshaft, horizontal flywheel and a set of bevel gears. Ole and Bess’ brother, Russ, took the motor to Milwaukee’s Kinnickinnic River, rented a small boat, and took it for a trial run. The loud motor worked. Ole and Russ cruised up the river at five miles per hour, pasty greasy deckhands outfitting coal boats for the summer. Bess dubbed the motor the “coffee grinder” and asked- Ole what commercial use he had planned for it. Ole had to admit he had given little thought to marketing his invention. Bess sent him back to his shop with the suggestion that he “work a few of the bugs out” of the motor. Eventually Ole built a second, improved model, which he loaned to a friend to use for a day. He returned with orders for ten motors and cash to pay for them, all from people who had seen the motor in action. Ole built the 10 motors. Each weighed 62 pounds and cost $62. The orders kept coming After 25 motors had been built and sold, Bess took the destiny of the outboard motor industry in her own hands. She inserted an ad in a Milwaukee paper which read, “Don’t Row! Throw the ’Oars Away! Use an Evinrude motor.” There was no company to manufacture the motors. Ole had built them all by hand. Bess used their home address. When a pile of responses to the ad accumulated on her desk, she dumped them in front of Ole. He had little choice but to supply the motors to the public.