Richard Spikes

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Richard Spikes (1884-1962) was an African-American engineer from San Francisco, California. He discovered a system of automobile directional signals, which he installed on a Pierce-Arrow car in 1913. In 1932 he received a patent for an automatic gear shift device.

[edit] Inventions

Richard Spikes patented or developed the following inventions:

Automatic car washer (1913)
Automobile directional signals (1913) - manufactured by Pierce Arrow
Beer keg tap (1910) - purchased by Milwaukee Brewing Company.
Self-locking rack for billiard cues (1910)
Continuous contact trolley pole (1919) - used on the famous San Francisco Key Line.
Combination milk bottle opener and cover (1926)
Method and apparatus for obtaining average samples and temperature of tank liquids (1931)
Improved automatic gear shift (1932) - licensed the patent for $100,000
Transmission and shifting thereof (1933)
Automatic shoe shine chair (1939)
Multiple barrel machine gun (1940)
Horizontally swinging barber chair (1950)
Automatic safety brake (1962)

Richard Spikes through little is written about his personal life,education,or childhood what is known is that would be welcomed by many major companies.The first invention credited to him was the railroad semaphoreinvented in 1906.But him more famous inventon was the beer keg tap that was purchased by Milwaukee brewing companing.

[edit] Trivia

His most famous invention was the beer keg tap (1910)

Note: While Richard Spikes was working on his automatic safety brake in 1962, he lost his vision. As a result, Richard Spikes designed a drafting machine for blind people, in order to assist him in his inventing.

Richard m Bennett - Automatic gear shift U.S. Patent 1,889,814 issued 12/6/1932

Richard M Bennett patented an improved automatic gear shift in 1932. His object was to develop a gear shift where the gears for the various speeds were in constant mesh. Richard Spikes invented a novel clutch mechanism for his gear shift, he used levers to shift gears.