John Froelich (November 24, 1849 – May 24, 1933) was an American inventor who lived in

Froelich, Iowa Froelich ( ) is an unincorporated community in Clayton County, Iowa, United States. History Froelich was once served by its own post office, which is now closed. Froelich was named for the early landowner of the town site. The agricultural indu ...

, a small village in northeast Iowa which was named for his father. In 1892, John Froelich developed the first stable

gasoline Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic c ...

/petrol-powered

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...

with forward and reverse gears. John Froelich attended school in red robbin, and at the College of Iowa. There he learned a lot about machinery. After college, he decided he would build the very first gasoline-powered tractor to go both forward and reverse. Designed by his blacksmith Will Mann and himself, Froelich was able to build a 16-

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

(12 kW) tractor that could go both forward and backward by the year 1892. After completing the tractor, Froelich and Mann brought it to

Langford, South Dakota Langford is a town in Marshall County, South Dakota, United States. The population was 283 at the 2020 census. Langford was laid out in 1886, and named in honor of Sam Langford, the original owner of the town site. Geography Langford is locate ...

, where they would connect it to a J.I. Case

threshing machine A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of farm equipment that threshes grain, that is, it removes the seeds from the stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed, thr ...

, and thresh 72,000 bushels in 52 days. Around 1895, he left

, and settled in

Marshalltown, Iowa Marshalltown is a city in and the county seat of Marshall County, Iowa, United States, located along the Iowa River. It is the seat and most populous settlement of Marshall County and the 16th largest city in Iowa, with a population of 27,591 at ...

, then moved to

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center o ...

. He later developed a new type of clothes-washing machine he named the Froelich Neostyle Washer. There is a museum in the small town of Froelich, Iowa where John Froelich assembled his first gasoline tractor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Froelich, John 1849 births 1933 deaths 19th-century American inventors 20th-century American inventors People from Waterloo, Iowa People from Galena, Illinois People from Marshalltown, Iowa People from Saint Paul, Minnesota People from Clayton County, Iowa