Flip to 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.Close Window
Credit: Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/hst/scientific-identity
Born in Newport, Delaware, Oliver Evans (1755 –1819) was one of the United States’ first great inventors. In addition to inventing the automated grist mill that revolutionized the American milling industry, Evans in 1789 received the first U.S. patent for a steam-powered land vehicle. After moving to Philadelphia in 1792, he invented a high-pressure steam engine that would help revolution American industry in the early 1800s.
