Totally worthless briquette trivia


 
M

Mike A.

TVWBB Fan
Saw this in a grilling article today:

"Henry Ford was not only instrumental in the automobile industry, he also came up with the idea of charcoal briquettes. Being a waste not, want not kind of guy, he decided to burn the scraps left over from making the wooden parts of his cars and grind them into powder. He added a starch binder, then compressed them into small pillow-shaped pieces. Originally they were used for campfires. His buddy Thomas Edison designed the first charcoal briquette manufacturing plant."

Article
 
Some background on this can be found on TVWB. Visit the All About Charcoal article and click the Infobullet "Henry Ford and Charcoal Briquets?"

There is a man named GW Neal who makes it his mission to correct this myth about Henry Ford and briquets. He took me to task for perpetuating the myth on TVWB. Here's what he e-mailed me in July 2006:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">In your story "All About Charcoal" you perpetuate the myth that Henry Ford invented charcoal briquettes . . .

"For some history about the invention of the charcoal briquette and the role Kingsford and Henry Ford played in it, click the TVWB InfoBullet on the right."

I realize it makes a good story, but it isn't true.

The ORIGINAL design for briquettes was patented by Ellsworth B. A. Zwoyer (my great-grandfather) in 1897. You can get the drawings and specifications of the original patents at the US Patent Office web site. Search for D27483 and D27484. The Zwoyer Fuel Company also built charcoal briquette manufacturing plants in such places as Buffalo, NY and Fall River, MA after WWI. I have seen many web sites, Kingsford literature, and even a TV special citing Henry Ford as the "inventor" of briquettes. I think credit should be given where due. Thanks for your time! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>The patents are indeed there, so I removed that reference from the site.

See, you can learn something from totally worthless briquette trivia!

Regards,
Chris
 
I saw something about that on Discovery channel.

Basically, it was like a lot of other products. "Oh, I make steam powered cars that burn wood and crap to run." "I also have wood and crap everywhere leftover from making cars." "If only I could turn that into a fuel source...."
 
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