Alvin Orlando Lombard was the American inventor of the track-wheeled vehicle. First patented in 1901, the

Lombard Steam Log Hauler The term Lombard refers to people or things related to Lombardy, a region in northern Italy. History and culture * Lombards, a Germanic tribe * Lombards of Sicily, a linguistic minority living in Sicily, southern Italy * Lombard League, a me ...

revolutionized the movement of harvested logs through the woods and set the stage for every

snowmobile A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not ...

, tank and

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

ever built.

Youth

Alvin Lombard was born in Springfield, Maine in 1856. He demonstrated mechanical aptitude as a boy building small machines including a model wood-splitter powered by a water wheel. He demonstrated the model by cutting cucumber slices.

Career

At the age of 8, Alvin began working in the family sawmill in

Lincoln, Maine Lincoln is a town in Penobscot County, Maine. The town's population was 4,853 at the 2020 United States Census. A statue honoring Medal of Honor recipient Gary Gordon was installed in Lincoln, in 2021. The bronze sculpture faces Gordon's grav ...

.Harrington, John Walker ''How Self-taught Lumberjack Invented the World's First Endless-Tread Logging Tractor'' in January, 1923 ''Popular Science'' magazine pp.43&46 He later obtained patents for some of his mechanical innovations at the sawmill, and opened a blacksmith shop in

Waterville, Maine Waterville is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. The city is home to Colby College and Thomas College. As of the 2020 census the population was 15,828. Along with Augusta, Waterville is ...

with his brother, Samuel Lombard. Samuel oversaw manufacturing of sawmill and logging equipment Alvin had designed. In their shop in Waterville, the Lombard brothers produced the huge steam-powered locomotives that slid on skis and were powered by huge tracks in the rear, enabling them to travel throughout the Maine woods free from the steel tracks that limited other railroad vehicles. In time, Lombard produced smaller, diesel powered loghaulers as well as trucks, snowplows and other commercial vehicles. Lombard also obtained patents for a

pulpwood Pulpwood is timber with the principal use of making wood pulp for paper production. Applications * Trees raised specifically for pulp production account for 15% of world pulp production, old growth forests 9% and second- and third- and more gene ...

bark Bark may refer to: * Bark (botany), an outer layer of a woody plant such as a tree or stick * Bark (sound), a vocalization of some animals (which is commonly the dog) Places * Bark, Germany * Bark, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, Poland Arts, e ...

er, a device for automatically cutting pulpwood into shorter lengths for grinding, a pulpwood crusher, a device for removing

knots A knot is a fastening in rope or interwoven lines. Knot may also refer to: Places * Knot, Nancowry, a village in India Archaeology * Knot of Isis (tyet), symbol of welfare/life. * Minoan snake goddess figurines#Sacral knot Arts, entertainme ...

from

sulfite process The sulfite process produces wood pulp that is almost pure cellulose fibers by treating wood chips with solutions of sulfite and bisulfite ions. These chemicals cleave the bonds between the cellulose and lignin components of the lignocellulose. A ...

pulp, and a

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

to control the speed of water turbines.

Legacy

Antarctic

Mount Lombard Mount Lombard () is the highest peak dominating the mountain mass whose southern extremity is Cape Sobral, Graham Land, Antarctica, and surmounting Mundraga Bay to the west. It was mapped from surveys by the Falkland Islands Dependencies Surve ...

was named in recognition of the Lombard Log Hauler as the first application of knowledge of snow mechanics to trafficability. His Waterville home is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

References

External links

*Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands Web Pag
Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lombard, Alvin Orlando 1856 births 1937 deaths People from Penobscot County, Maine People from Waterville, Maine 20th-century American inventors Tracked vehicles