Awake: 7:01am Temp 41 sleep 6+29 overcast overnight @ Ravenna, Ohio.
Early morning, Nick & I text, covering the rise & fall of the stock market & a possible bloody Monday coming up.
After breakfast, we motor in the Suzuki (13) miles to the city of Warren, Ohio; population 45,796. Like tourists, we drive a grid pattern downtown & thru some of the nearby suburbs. From all indications, during the mid-to-late 1800’s, this city was very active & prosperous; today however, it doesn’t look so good. Many vacant store fronts, large homes in disrepair, large empty factories, etc. “Millionaires Row” on Mahoning Ave is the exception…..still today.
Yesteryears, this was where the local affluent-the “Who’s Who” of American industry, commerce & politics-built & lived in stately homes & mansions that lined the street. Recognized as national treasures, many of these structures have been restored to their original grandeur &, today, they are home to businesses, museums, offices & some private residences.
The city of Warren was the first city in the U.S. to light its streets with incandescent bulbs. The year: 1911.
Harry Stevens, who was America’s inventor of the hot dog, baseball scorecard & drinking straw, was born in Niles, a few miles from Warren.
Next, we visit the National Packard Museum for (1.5) hrs. The Packard auto was well ahead of its time with many 1st in the auto industry .
Packard "Firsts"
Nearly all motor cars made today are in some way or other beneficiaries of Packard pioneering in engineering and manufacturing. Following are but a few of the contributions made by Packard to the motor car world in the past 100+ years:
First to develop thermostatic control of water circulation in a motor car.
˚ First to locate the hand-brake lever at driver's left.
˚ First to use the selective gear shift with the "H" movement.
˚ First to use a steering wheel instead of a tiller handle.
˚ First to hook up accelerator pedal and hand throttle, now common to all cars.
˚ First to patent automobile wheels interchangeable at hub.
˚ First to offer a ribbed jacket water cooled cylinder. Packard cars built in 1900 had sheet metal jacket around single cylinder.
˚ First to obtain patent on radiator with top and bottom reservoirs with tubes - the universally used radiator of today.
˚ First to obtain a patent on the luggage rack used at rear of car.
˚ First to use machines for boring both ends of connecting rods with diamonds.
˚ First to rifle bore an oil passage in connecting rods for piston pin lubrication.
˚ First American company to offer a straight-eight-L-head engine.
˚ First American company to offer a V-type, twelve cylinder engine.
˚ First American automobile company to build a 24 cylinder engine.
˚ First company to build a 1000 horse power aircraft engine.
˚ First to build an engine in form of an "X".
˚ First to offer an eight cylinder automobile engine with nine main bearings.
˚ First to develop and fly a diesel aircraft engine.
˚ First American production car to provide four-wheel brakes as standard equipment.
˚ First Automobile company to use spiral bevel gears in rear axle. Included the designing of the complicated machinery for cutting the gear teeth.
˚ First to offer hypoid gears in rear axle. (1926).
˚ First to use the central automatic chassis lubricator system.
˚ First to introduce in America the "Trunnion-block" which in its day added to driving safety by eliminating wheel "shimmy".
˚ First to offer "ride control" in motor cars - a mechanism for controlling shock absorber activity.
˚ First to pioneer the use of and largely responsible for the development of steel backed bearings.
˚ First to make use of the double door latch - now universally used.
˚ First automobile company to use Light Ray Machine (which calibrates down to one-millionth of an inch) for checking precision tools.
˚ First automobile company to use radio amplification for inspecting ball and roller bearings.
˚ First to patent and use a striping instrument which greatly simplified and improved the accuracy of striping bodies.
˚ First to provide a package compartment in instrument board.
˚ First to provide sun visors.
˚ First automobile company to standardize labor and material service charges.
˚ First to use iron and steel jig for body assembly.
˚ First American car to introduce crankshaft vibration damper.
˚ First to use aluminum pistons.
˚ First to employ weights in ends of front bumper for stabilizing movement of heavy weight cars.
Dinner: leftover Tilapia from the Perkins restaurant of Wednesday.
Kathy calls the Footes; the radiators are all back, reconnected & putting out good heat.
We finish the movie: “The Purple Plain” with Gregory Peck, Win Min Than, Bernard Lee, Maurice Denham, etc. Ambler-scripted drama of love, loss & survival during WW2, charting the plight of disaffected pilot Peck, whose wife was killed on the night of their wedding during a London air raid. 1954. Not too bad for an airplane & love story combined.
Lights out: 11:34pm
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