27 Facts About Granville Woods

Granville Tailer Woods was an American inventor who held more than 60 patents in the United States.

Granville Woods was the first African American mechanical and electrical engineer after the Civil War.

Granville T Woods invented and patented Tunnel Construction for the electric railroad system, electrical rollercoasters.

Granville T Woods was born to Martha J Brown and Cyrus Woods.

Granville Woods had a brother named Lyates and a sister named Rachel.

Granville Woods's mother was part Native American, and his father was African American.

In 1872, Granville Woods obtained a job as a fireman on the Danville and Southern Railroad in Missouri.

Granville Woods eventually became an engineer and in December 1874, moved to Springfield, Illinois, where he worked at a rolling mill, the Springfield Iron Works.

Granville Woods studied mechanical and electrical engineering in college from 1876 to 1878.

Granville Woods moved to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1880, and established his business as an electrical engineer and an inventor.

In 1892, he moved his research operations to New York City, where he was joined by his brother, Lyates Granville Woods, who had several inventions.

In 1884, Granville Woods received his first patent, for a steam boiler furnace, and in 1885, Granville Woods patented an apparatus that was a combination of a telephone and a telegraph.

Granville Woods sold the rights to this device to the American Bell Telephone Company.

Granville Woods caught smallpox prior to patenting the technology, and Lucius Phelps patented it in 1884.

In 1887, Granville Woods used notes, sketches, and a working model of the invention to secure the patent.

The invention was so successful that Granville Woods began the Granville Woods Electric Company in Cincinnati, Ohio, to market and sell his patents.

Thomas Edison later filed a claim to the ownership of this patent, stating that he had first created a similar telegraph and that he was entitled to the patent for the device, and Granville Woods often had difficulties in enjoying his success as other inventors made claims to his devices.

Granville Woods was twice successful in defending himself, proving that there were no other devices upon which he could have depended or relied upon to make his device.

In 1888, Granville Woods manufactured a system of overhead electric conducting lines for railroads modeled after the system pioneered by Charles van Depoele, a famed inventor who had by then installed his electric railway system in thirteen United States cities.

Granville Woods's patent built upon previous third rail systems, improving the safety by using wire brushes to make connections with metallic terminal heads without exposing wires by installing electrical contactor rails.

Granville Woods had provided funds for Woods to market the invention, but a crucial component of the invention was missing from the deal, which the manager of the company, James S Zerbe, later stole.

Granville Woods patented the invention in 1893, and in 1901, he sold it to General Electric.

Granville Woods is sometimes credited with the invention of the air brake for trains in 1904; however, George Westinghouse patented the air brake almost 40 years prior, making Granville Woods's contribution an improvement to the invention.

Granville Woods died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Harlem Hospital in New York City on January 30,1910, having sold a number of his devices to such companies as Westinghouse, General Electric, and American Engineering.

Granville Woods was interred at St Michael's Cemetery in Elmhurst, Queens in an unmarked grave.

In 2004, the New York City Transit Authority organized an exhibition on Granville Woods that utilized bus and train depots and an issue of four million MetroCards commemorating the inventor's work on third rail electrification.

In 2006, Granville Woods was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.