123 Facts About Elwood Haynes

Elwood Haynes was an American inventor, metallurgist, automotive pioneer, entrepreneur and industrialist.

Elwood Haynes invented the metal alloy stellite and independently co-discovered martensitic stainless steel along with Englishman Harry Brearley in 1912 and designed one of the earliest automobiles made in the United States.

Elwood Haynes is recognized for having created the earliest American design that was feasible for mass production and, with the Apperson brothers, he formed the first company in the United States to produce automobiles profitably.

Early in his career, while serving as a field superintendent at gas and oil companies during Indiana's gas boom, Haynes invented several devices important to the advance of the natural gas industry.

Elwood Haynes formed a partnership with Elmer and Edgar Apperson in 1896 to start Haynes-Apperson for the commercial production of automobiles.

Elwood Haynes renamed it Haynes Automobile Company in 1905, following the loss of his partners.

Elwood Haynes sold his patent for stainless steel to the American Stainless Steel Company in exchange for enough stock to gain a seat at the company's board of directors, a position he held for 12 years.

Elwood Haynes merged the Haynes Stellite company with Union Carbide in 1920.

Elwood Haynes returned his focus to his automotive company, but in the economic recession of the 1920s the business went bankrupt and was liquidated.

Elwood Haynes ran an unsuccessful campaign in Indiana for the US Senate in 1916 as a prohibition candidate and remained active in the party until prohibition became law.

Elwood Haynes's family was of English descent; he was a ninth-generation descendant of Walter Haynes who immigrated from Wiltshire, England to Sudbury, Massachusetts in 1638.

Elwood Haynes's father was Jay County's school commissioner, a lawyer, Whig politician, and a judge of the Jay and Randolph County common pleas court.

Elwood Haynes's mother was the founder of a local Women's Temperance Movement Union.

Elwood Haynes's paternal grandfather Henry Haynes was a gunsmith and mechanic, and tutored Haynes about metallurgy.

At age 12, Elwood Haynes built his first vehicle from scrap railroad car parts and operated it on the county's railroad tracks.

Elwood Haynes was interested in nature and spent considerable time in the forest cataloging and observing plants, insects, and animals.

Elwood Haynes attended public schools through eighth grade and received a basic education.

Elwood Haynes had not determined a career path for himself and his parents often criticized him for lacking ambition; they insisted that he seek employment.

Elwood Haynes began by working as a custodian at a local church and later for the railroad, hauling ballast to construction sites.

When Portland's first public high school was opened in 1876, Elwood Haynes returned to school at age 19 and completed two more years.

Bertha and her family moved to Alabama during the spring of 1877, and Elwood Haynes began a regular correspondence with her.

Elwood Haynes attended the meetings, probably at his parents' urging, and became interested in temperance.

Elwood Haynes took two of Murphy's pledge cards and carried one for most of his life; the other he mailed to Bertha.

Elwood Haynes' father attended the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 where he learned of a school that would fit his son's interests.

Elwood Haynes cleaned the building overnight and used his spare time to read books and study.

Elwood Haynes took a job teaching at the Jay County public school after returning home.

Elwood Haynes chose the school because, as it was only eight years old, it had one of the most modern laboratories available.

Elwood Haynes took courses in chemistry and biology and learned advanced metallurgic techniques.

Elwood Haynes's mother died in May 1885 and he decided to leave the university without completing his second year, as he was not working to attain a degree but only taking courses of interest.

Elwood Haynes delivered several lectures to large crowds about the importance of the gas discovery and the many possible applications of this new source of fuel.

Elwood Haynes began a petition to have the local citizens create a corporation to pump the fuel from the ground and pipe it to area homes and businesses.

Elwood Haynes's promotion was successful and Portland Natural Gas and Oil Company was formed; Haynes' father was named to the new company's board of directors.

Elwood Haynes was one of the first in the Trenton Field, and many of the others which soon followed modeled themselves on the Portland company.

Elwood Haynes invented several devices that became important to the success of the industry.

Elwood Haynes married Bertha Lanterman in October 1887 after a ten-year relationship.

Elwood Haynes became increasingly active in the Presbyterian church and became an elder.

Elwood Haynes oversaw construction of the ten-mile long pipeline and the creation of the wells for pumping the gas.

Elwood Haynes theorized that a motorized vehicle would be more economical than horse-and-buggy transportation, and could potentially move at a faster speed.

The Indiana Natural Gas and Oil Company, headquartered in Chicago, hired Haynes as their field superintendent in 1890 after the company's board of directors "discovered that Elwood Haynes knew more about natural gas than anyone in the state".

Elwood Haynes planned to construct a natural gas line from eastern Indiana to Chicago, a distance of over 150 miles, which would be the first long-distance natural gas pipeline built in the United States.

Elwood Haynes supervised the design and construction phases of the project.

Elwood Haynes solved the problem by creating a refrigeration device that would cause the moisture to condense, freeze, and fall into a reservoir.

Elwood Haynes helped the company compile reports and offered opinions on the validity of their claims.

Elwood Haynes was disturbed to find that many of the claims proved true, and advocated that the gas be used more conservatively.

Elwood Haynes specifically recommended that the flambeaus be extinguished, as they were found to be the largest source of waste.

Elwood Haynes calculated that the company daily wasted $10,000 worth of gas by burning flambeaus, a figure that shocked the company's leaders.

Elwood Haynes personally filed lawsuits against the regulations a month after their passage, claiming that the government had no right to regulate artificial increases in well pressure.

Elwood Haynes continued to develop his plans until the summer of 1893 when he attended the Chicago World's Fair, where he first witnessed a gasoline engine.

Elwood Haynes ordered a one-horsepower marine upright, two-cycle engine from Sintz Gas Engine Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan for $225.

Elwood Haynes soon had the device attached to a carriage he built in his kitchen.

Elwood Haynes found when he started the engine that its vibrations were too severe for the harness it was in, and before he could stop the engine it had done considerable damage to the carriage and the floor of his kitchen, and filled the room with smoke.

Elwood Haynes decided he needed a different facility to continue the experiment after his wife told him she would not abide his destruction of the family kitchen.

Elwood Haynes contacted Elmer Apperson, the operator of the Riverside Machine Works, and arranged to use a space in his shop for the continued development.

Elwood Haynes agreed to work on his vehicle only after-hours, pay 40 cents per hour for the help of Elmer and his brother Edgar, and to not hold them responsible should his project fail.

Elwood Haynes started building a new carriage, this time with a heavier steel harness.

Elwood Haynes described the appearance of the vehicle as a "small truck".

Elwood Haynes used a wagon built to the weight of his automobile and a horse to pull a device that would cause the wheels to turn, thereby providing traction.

Elwood Haynes named his car the Pioneer and first test drove the vehicle on July 4,1894.

Elwood Haynes was concerned that his vehicle could injure someone in the crowd, so he had the vehicle towed by a horse and buggy to Pumpkinvine Pike, away from the crowd.

Elwood Haynes traveled for 1.5 miles and then stopped the vehicle to manually turn it around with Elmer's help.

Elwood Haynes proceeded to drive it several more miles back into town without stopping.

Elwood Haynes's trip convinced him that the vehicle was worthwhile and could become a valuable enterprise, although he was disappointed in the vehicle's handling and decided he needed to improve the steering system and find a way to divert the motor's exhaust smoke away from the carriage.

Elwood Haynes' car is believed to be the second gasoline-engine powered vehicle successfully road tested in the United States, according to its exhibit information at the Smithsonian Institution.

Unlike Duryea's car, which was an adapted buckboard wagon that was designed to run under its own power but still able to be pulled by horse, Elwood Haynes' car was designed only to run on its own.

Some automotive historians use this difference to determine that Elwood Haynes' car was the first true American automobile.

Elwood Haynes continued to drive his car as he added improvements to the vehicle, and constructed the Pioneer II in 1895 to incorporate his improved steering designs and an exhaust pipe.

Elwood Haynes built the new car with the intention of running it in the 1895 Chicago Times-Herald Race, the first automobile race in the United States.

Elwood Haynes continued to perfect his auto design, and in late 1895 he began his work to create a new hard alloy for use as a crankcase and other auto parts.

Elwood Haynes's intent was to make a metal that would be resistant to rusting.

Elwood Haynes experimented with the use of aluminum and found that when used, it significantly deadened the noise produced by the engine parts.

Elwood Haynes became involved in a dispute with the Duryea company over the advertisements Elwood Haynes-Apperson ran, claiming to have created the first automobile.

Elwood Haynes-Apperson ran advertisements in area newspapers and demonstrated cars at county fairs and other exhibitions.

Elwood Haynes had soon designed superior methods of achieving traction and his car could climb hills easier than his competitors in the early races.

In 1901, a Elwood Haynes car was entered in the first Long Island Non-Stop endurance race.

The Elwood Haynes car took first place in the race, adding to the company's publicity and helping to feed a large jump in sales.

Elwood Haynes began to have disagreements with the Apperson brothers for reasons that were never made public but were probably over money and design plans.

Elwood Haynes wanted to produce luxury cars because much of the company's early clientele was wealthy, while the Appersons wanted to produce utilitarian vehicles that could be marketed to businesses.

The disagreement led the two brothers to split from Elwood Haynes and start a company of their own in 1902.

The loss of his partners necessitated that Elwood Haynes leave his position at Indiana Gas to devote more time to his growing business.

Elwood Haynes was most interested in working on development, and turned over daily management to Victor Minich in 1903.

Elwood Haynes spent most of his research efforts developing metals in an attempt to discover lighter and stronger alloys for automobile parts.

Elwood Haynes investigated other areas and published a 1906 paper on the impurities in gasoline and recommended that the sulfur content in the fuel be lowered to increase engine performance.

Elwood Haynes was followed by ten Haynes cars, a model from each year to display the advancement in technology.

Elwood Haynes was able to see a magistrate who released him after learning that he was Elwood Haynes and had come to lead the parade.

Elwood Haynes donated the Pioneer to the United States Government in 1910 to be placed in the Smithsonian Institution where it is still on display in the National Museum of American History as the second oldest motorized vehicle in the United States.

Elwood Haynes expanded the company significantly in 1908 to accommodate ever-increasing sales.

In 1910, Elwood Haynes Auto became the first company to build a car with a roof, windshield, headlights, and a speedometer as standard on each vehicle to continue their goal of producing the best luxury vehicles.

Elwood Haynes continued his research into ways to produce corrosion resistant metals.

Elwood Haynes continued to experiment with it until 1910 when he published his findings in a paper to the International Congress of Applied Chemistry and the American Institute of Metals, where he held memberships.

Elwood Haynes applied for another patent on an alloy he called stainless steel, now known as martensitic stainless steel.

Elwood Haynes conceded their point, but submitted a second application and supplied a sample showing the stainlessness of his alloy when created using his exact proportions of metals, and it was granted.

Elwood Haynes sought out Haynes and the two decided to pool their findings in a single company to produce the alloy.

Elwood Haynes sold his stainless steel patent in 1918 to the American Stainless Steel Company, a company Brearley had created with the assistance of investors in Pennsylvania.

The income from the transaction led Elwood Haynes to begin the accumulation of a large fortune.

Elwood Haynes strictly controlled production, and did not permit the other licensees to sell stellite in its raw form, but to only sell it as specific finished products.

The employees of the company unionized and began to demand wage increases beyond what Elwood Haynes believed was fair.

Elwood Haynes later made an additional half million from dividends.

Elwood Haynes was an avid supporter of prohibition and spoke several times on behalf of prohibitionist leader Frank Hanly, lending him both personal and financial support.

Elwood Haynes continued in his support of the Prohibition Party and donated it thousands of dollars and an automobile nicknamed the "Prohibition Flyer".

Elwood Haynes became increasingly involved in the organization and in 1916 he ran for the United States Senate on the prohibition ticket, making many speeches and stumping across the state.

Elwood Haynes was overwhelmingly defeated, receiving only 15,598 votes out of nearly one million cast.

Harry Stewart New, the Republican candidate narrowly won the election by plurality, and Haynes was accused of costing Incumbent Democratic Senator John W Kern's re-election.

Kokomo politics was dominated by the Klan during that period and it is unknown if Elwood Haynes spoke publicly against the organization.

Elwood Haynes purchased a new home on Webster Street in Kokomo in 1915.

The home, known as the Elwood Haynes Mansion, was large enough to house a personal laboratory for Elwood Haynes to work in.

Elwood Haynes made regular large donations to the Presbyterian church and became a patron of the Worcester Institute he had attended, providing scholarships and donating funds for expansion.

Elwood Haynes funded the formation of a Young Men's Christian Association in Kokomo where he and his son became active.

Elwood Haynes taught swimming classes and regularly took underprivileged young boys to movies and bought them dinners.

Elwood Haynes's primary focus during his tenure was the launching of several successful membership drives.

Elwood Haynes had to use his personal savings to rescue the company in 1921 and pay off some outstanding accounts.

Unlike the other large auto companies like Ford and General Motors, Elwood Haynes Auto did not have the widespread dealership agreements that were able to sustain their companies through the hard times; his company relied on customer's ordering directly from the factory.

Elwood Haynes sought a merger with multiple other auto companies, including Henry Ford, but partners were not forthcoming and Elwood Haynes was forced to agree to a liquidation in 1925.

Elwood Haynes was held personally responsible for about $95,000 of the company's debt.

In total, the loss cost Elwood Haynes an estimated quarter of his net worth.

Elwood Haynes remained in his home, attended by his personal physician and a nurse until his death from congestive heart failure on April 13,1925.

Elwood Haynes' funeral was held in Kokomo before his interment at the city's Memorial Park cemetery.

Elwood Haynes' fortune had shrunk considerably with the collapse of his auto company.

Elwood Haynes had already been forced to borrow money using future dividends and royalties as collateral, leaving his family with some difficulty in coming up with funds to maintain his home.

Elwood Haynes' estate was left to his wife who continued to live in the family mansion until her own death from a stroke in August 1933.

Elwood Haynes is remembered as a pioneer of the American automobile, and as the creator of the first automobile design viable for mass production.

Elwood Haynes is credited as being one of those primarily responsible for the rapid growth of the natural gas industry in Indiana, a boom that made northern Indiana one of the leading industrial regions of the United States.

Elwood Haynes is remembered for his development of stainless steel and stellite, materials that are commonly used across the world today.

Haynes is the grandfather of Margaret Hillis, founder and director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and Elwood Hillis, an eight term Congressman representing Indiana's 5th District.