Central New York is well-known for many things, but did you know a lot of interesting and important inventions came from this area?

First, Matt Hubbell brought you some of the top inventions for Central New York - like the dentist chair and traffic lights, but we have a few more to add to the list. These 'extra' inventions are coming out of Ilion, New York - Two important inventions from "The Valley."

The first one is the typewriter. That's right, the once extremely popular device (now, pretty obsolete), came from Ilion... Well, sort of. According to IdeaFinder.com,

...in 1867, a Milwaukee, Wisconsin printer-publisher-politician named Christopher Latham Sholes, with assistance from Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule, patented what was to be the first useful typewriter. He licensed his patent to Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York, a noted American gun maker. In 1874, the Remington Model 1, the first commercial typewriter, was placed on the market.

Before the patent to Remington & Sons, there were many typewriter-like inventions, but most of them were not very 'user-friendly.' Most of the early versions of the typewriter took more work to use, that it was easier to just write things by hand.

Not only was the typewriter patented and the first commercial ones made and sold from Ilion, but another big invention came out of this village (and it's mentioned in the first invention). The second invention is the Remington firearm.

That doesn't mean 'firearms' were invented in Ilion, but the famous brand of Remington started there. The first Remington rifle was hand-built in 1816. According to Wikipedia,

Remington is America's oldest gun maker and "It's America's oldest factory that still makes its original product-guns."

That's two inventions right from Ilion, added to the other Top 5 Important Inventions from Central New York. Do you know of any unique inventions that came from CNY? You can let us know in the 'comments section' at the bottom of this page.

 

 


 

More From Lite 98.7