5 Minutes With Jim, Episode 106

The period between 1890 and 1930 has long been of interest to me. It was an era of amazing transition fueled by visionaries, intellectual giants, and eccentrics. Many are forgotten today but we still benefit from their contributions. 

Charles F. Kettering forever changed the world when he devised the first practical key ignition and electric starter system. It debuted on the 1912 Cadillac. For better or for worse he was also the pioneer behind the creation of leaded gasoline and Freon gas, automotive safety glass and an incubator for premature babies. He also established a cancer research facility, an engineering school, introduced the electric cash register and developed an electric diesel/dynamo that would replace steam as the power for locomotives.

Harold Wills was possessed with an insatiable curiosity and a sharp mind. He had developed an abiding passion for automobiles in the mid-1890s. He apprenticed as a machinist at the Boyer Machine Company in Detroit. In 1899 he began moonlighting, for free, for another visionary genius with a natural mechanical inclination - Henry Ford.

This program is sponsored in part by the amazing Roadrunner Lodge in Tucumcari, New Mexico and through the magic of crowdfunding on the Patreon platform - www.patreon.com/jimhinckleysamerica