Clessie Lyle Cummins (December 27, 1888 – August 17, 1968) was the founder of the
Cummins Engine Co. He was an
entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...
who improved on existing
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
s, created new diesel engine designs, was awarded 33 United States patents for his inventions, and set five world records for endurance and speed for trucks, buses and race cars.
Early life
Clessie Cummins was born on December 27, 1888.
Cummins began his career as a rural
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
farm boy, and had no formal
higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
beyond the eighth grade. In the 1910s Cummins went to work for a banker named William Irwin in
Columbus, Indiana
Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Bartholomew County, Indiana, United States. The population was 50,474 at the 2020 census. The relatively small city has provided a unique place for noted Modern architecture and public art, commissio ...
, as a
chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine.
Originally, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to speciali ...
and
mechanic
A mechanic is an artisan, skilled tradesperson, or technician who uses tools to build, maintain, or repair machinery, especially cars.
Duties
Most mechanics specialize in a particular field, such as auto body mechanics, air conditioning and r ...
.
Foundation of Cummins Engine Co.
In 1919, Clessie Cummins founded the
Cummins Engine Co, Inc (now Cummins, Inc) with the assistance of banker William G. Irwin. At the time of its founding, Cummins developed the first engine as licensee of R.M. Hvid Co. This engine was a model designed for use on the farm.
Cummins' former employer, Irwin, invested a great deal of money in Cummins' company. However, Irwin was not satisfied with the company's profits and threatened to cease investing. Sales of diesel engines to farmers through the
Sears-Roebuck
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...
catalog were not generating significant profits, partially because farmers would purchase and use the engines during the harvest period and then return them to Sears.
Clessie Cummins secured a
Packard
Packard or Packard Motor Car Company was an American luxury automobile company located in Detroit, Michigan. The first Packard automobiles were produced in 1899, and the last Packards were built in South Bend, Indiana in 1958.
One of the "Thr ...
limousine
A limousine ( or ), or limo () for short, is a large, chauffeur-driven luxury vehicle with a partition between the driver compartment and the passenger compartment.
A very long wheelbase luxury sedan (with more than four doors) driven by a prof ...
(a vehicle with a large engine compartment) and fitted one of his best engines into it with 3/8-inch to spare. He and an assistant drove the vehicle to the 1929 auto show in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
using $1.39 ($19.01 USD2013) worth of diesel fuel. The pair arranged for publicity along the way, but when they arrived at the show they found that they had been banned from any presentation because he had not registered in advance. Cummins proceeded to rent space across the street from the Auto Show, and the "''$1.39 for fuel, Indy to NYC''" auto became a popular feature of the show (despite not technically being included in it).
During the 1920s, many of the company's engines were used in yachts—a market that vanished during the Great Depression of the 1930s. At that time, his employer and patron, Will Irwin, owned a controlling interest in the Purity Stores supermarket chain, in California. Cummins convinced Irwin to install diesel engines in the fleet of trucks used to deliver food and staples to the stores. The diesel trucks were far better at managing the California mountains than the gasoline engines of that time, and were much more durable and economical to run. The success at Purity Stores attracted considerable attention, and the over-the-road diesel truck industry thus came into being. Thereafter, the growth of Cummins Engine came mainly from supplying high-speed, high-torque engines, which buyers specified for installation in semi-trailer tractors from most of the major manufacturers.
Cummins' times with the
engine
An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy.
Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gen ...
company continued to be tumultuous even after this success, but money was being made. Cummins' first successful engine design, the Model F (1924), was originally used for marine applications, but came to be used in other applications. In 1931 Cummins entered the Indianapolis 500 with a self-built (3,389 pound, 361 cubic-inch) four cylinder, three-valve, , Model U marine diesel that he installed into a Model A Duesenberg. The Cummins Duesy averaged and completed the race on 1 tank of fuel, without any pit stops.
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
ensured the success of the fledgling company: the
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
military bought every diesel engine which could be produced in preparation for an Allied invasion of continental
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. But it was the post-war sale of truck engines that contributed most to the company's subsequent growth.
In 1955, Cummins had to leave the company he created, retiring from the position of Chairman. He had managed to hold onto some key
patents
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
and formed Cummins Enterprises Company later that year. He moved on to work for the
Allison Engine Company
The Allison Engine Company was an American aircraft engine manufacturer. Shortly after the death of James A. Allison, James Allison in 1929 the company was purchased by the Fisher Body, Fisher brothers. Fisher sold the company to General Motors, ...
in
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
.
Clessie Cummins continued to innovate until his death. He identified the problem of vehicle brakes overheating and becoming non-functional during long, steep downhill descents. As a result, he designed and patented the first
compression release engine brake
A compression release engine brake, compression brake, or decompression brake, frequently called a Jacobs brake or Jake Brake, is an engine braking mechanism installed on some diesel engines. When activated, it opens exhaust valves to the cyli ...
. The design was first offered to Cummins, but Jacobs was ultimately the company with which he partnered. In 1960, the product was sold under the Jake Brake name by Jacobs Vehicle Systems, Inc. As he approached eighty years of age, he designed, built, and ran in his basement shop a new concept engine. In 2022 Jacobs Vehicle Systems was acquired by Cummins Inc. bringing one of Clessie's inventions back to the company he originally founded.
[ ]
Death and legacy
Cummins died on August 17, 1968. Cummins, Inc. is now a worldwide builder of
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...
s. On February 22, 2007, Clessie Cummins was inducted into the Central Indiana Business Hall of Fame. His son, Clessie Lyle Cummins Junior, has written several books.
See also
*
Cummins Engine Co
References
* ''My days with the diesel: The memoirs of Clessie L. Cummins, father of the highway diesel'', by Clessie L Cummins.
* ''Diesel Odyssey of Clessie Cummins'', by Lyle Cummins.
External links
The ''Cummins, Inc.'' company website
''Autoweek'' article about Cummins' diesel-powered racecar, with photographs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cummins, Clessie
1888 births
1968 deaths
People from Columbus, Indiana
American company founders
American manufacturing businesspeople
Businesspeople from Indiana
Cummins people
American automotive pioneers
20th-century American businesspeople