Day 21 - Richard Spikes - Teaching, Barbering, Beer, and Busses

automatic gear shift

As I do these spotlights on African American inventors, I am struck by how incredibly practical-minded they are. Yes, they've created some out of this world things, but they don't start at spectacular even if that's how it ends.

Richard Spikes is a perfect example of what a practical mind does when it encounters a problem of inefficiency.

There is some disagreement about where Spikes was born. In the census, it states that he was born in Dallas, TX, but he always claimed he was born in "Indian Country", which translates in 2020 to Oklahoma.

His father was a barber, and Richard was one of many children. The number is given as high as nine and as low as six. 

Two of his brothers were famous Jazz performers. John Curry Spikes and Reb Spikes. 

Richard was said to be a competent musician in piano and violin, but that was not where his practical mind took him. He became a school teacher in Beaumont, TX. Ultimately he married Lula B. Charlton who was the daughter of Charles Napoleon Charlton who established the first schools for black children in Beaumont. (Incidentally, my mother was a graduate of Charlton Pollard High School in Beaumont.)

After they were married, Richard and Lula moved several times. Each time they went further west. Richard seems to have tried his hand at business as they moved. 

In 1907 in Bisbee, AZ, Spikes opened a saloon. He was displeased with the taps for kegs. The beer didn't flow evenly, and it went bad. Surely there was a way to get a smoother flow and keep it fresher longer.

 His very practical mind decided there had to be a better way, so, he invented one and patented it. The patent was bought by The Milwaukee Brewing Company. They are still using the same design Spikes came up with to this very day. Everyone who has ever tapped a keg is using it.

After fixing keg technology, he moved to California. He did a whole host of things in California. He ended up running a number of businesses and patenting inventions. I won't go through all of them, but I will post a list of all of the things he patented below. 

There are three inventions I want to highlight. They were all for automobiles. One is controversial, one was quite timely, and the last is still in use today. 

Pierre Arrow Car

The controversial one - in 1913, he created a signaling system for cars and installed it in his Pierre-Arrow. Car manufacturers loved it and had it installed in their cars. 

This is controversial because six years before Spikes created his signaling system, somebody else had already invented one. Richard did not invent this originally. Why didn't he know someone else had invented the device? Because nobody used it before he put it in his own car and started driving around with it.  The original inventor? Percy Douglas-Hamilton. You will see sites that claim Spikes was the first inventor. 

The second automobile invention was the automatic gear shift that went into the automatic transmission. He was paid one hundred thousand dollars for this invention. Not a small sum in the 1930s.

The most common one - aside from the spout that taps kegs, was an automatic safety brake system. He was going blind while he was inventing it, so he also invented a drafting machine for blind designers so he could finish his work. 

source

His final invention - the automatic safety brake system - is installed in school busses all over this nation.

Here is a list of what he either invented or innovated:

• railroad semaphore (1906)
• automatic car washer (1913)
• automobile directional signals (1913)
• beer keg tap (1910)
• self-locking rack for billiard cues (1910)
• continuous contact trolley pole (1919)
• combination milk bottle opener and cover (1926)
• method and apparatus for obtaining average samples and temperature of tank liquids (1931)
• automatic gear shift (1932)
• transmission and shifting thereof (1933)
• automatic shoe shine chair (1939)
• multiple barrel machine gun (1940)
• horizontally swinging barber chair (1950)
• automatic safety brake (1962)

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Hats off to a very practical man who couldn't help but find things to fix, improve existing technology, or simply create necessary devices out of thin air!

Thank You, Richard Spikes!

Celebrate Black History!