SNOWPLOWS: Whose Idea Was That

(K.S. BROOKS/Chewelah Independent)

CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) workers clear snow at Rocky Mountain National Park, 1933. (National Park Service photograph by George A. Grant)

I was driving down Flowery Trail in Chewelah behind a county snowplow and realized that he was sanding at the same time. What a good idea, I thought, and then wondered who, exactly, invented the combination. I remember days back in Boston when the snowplow would come through first, and the sanding truck second. No more — you get both at the same time now. So. whose idea was that?

I figured that maybe the first plow was invented in Scandinavia, the land of snow, but I had no luck researching that. Then I realized — they don’t need no stinkin’ plows there. In Norway, they just ride reindeer, right? And in Sweden, they all drive Saabs (I’m a Saab girl from waaaay back. Don’t judge me).

Supposedly, the first patent for a snowplow was issued in the 1840s. The website Citilab.com states that “According to a wonderfully comprehensive history by the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the first snow plow was deployed in Milwaukee in 1862.” Those plows were actually dragged behind a team of horses, and caused quite the mess at intersections, driveways, and storefronts.

No one seems to want take credit for the snowplows you see on the front of trucks today, however, Wikipedia states that in 1913, Good Roads Machinery of Pennsylvania built the first plow intended…