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Illustration of Oliver Evans automated grain mill, from The young mill-wright and miller's guide: in five parts, embellished with twenty five plates, by Oliver Evans, 1795.
Credit: Library of Congress
In the late 1700s southeastern Pennsylvania was a center of American invention and technological innovation. One of America's pioneering inventors, Oliver Evans in 1782 built the nation's first automated grist mill, on Red Clay Creek, Delaware, and in 1789 received the first U.S. patent for a steam-powered land vehicle.