History of
the Small Engine: Lawn Mower Edition!
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| Lawn Mower Engine picture from Briggs & Stratton |
From tanks to
tractors, small engines have a storied history. Here at the Small Engine Blog
we look at the transformation of the small engine and the various and sundry things
that it powered today!
Lawn
Mowers: The Beginning
The first
formal lawns were thought to be of France in the 1700s, tended to by grazing
animals or hand-cut with shears and scythes. In 1830, Englishman Edwin Bear
Budding was granted the patent for the first mechanical lawn mower, based on a tool used to uniformly cut carpet and
comprised of a series of blades around a cylinder.
Nearly 40
years later, the reel lawn mower came to the United States. Initially made to
be horse-drawn, Elwood McGuire of Richmond, IN designed the first widely
popular human-powered push lawn mower.
From
Horses and Humans to Fuel
In 1902,
Ransomes of Ipswich, another English company, produced the first commercial
buyable lawn mower powered by an internal combustion gas
engine. 1919 brought the first gas powered
lawn mowers, manufactured by Colonel Edwin George, and gang mowers,
those with multiple sets of blades, to the United States.
Throughout
the early 1900’s, steam-powered tractors, many produced by Caterpillar, worked
on major projects from the clean-up after major natural disasters to the
construction of big infrastructure like the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
Engine
Advancements
In
1953, Briggs & Stratton
revolutionized the lawn and garden industry by developing the first lightweight
aluminum engine. This light aluminum engine
improved the ease of use of rotary lawn mowers and
was further advanced in 1958 with the introduction of Kool-Bore (all
aluminum) and Sleeve-Bore engines. Further advancements have been
made by Lombardini,
a part of the Kohler Group, offering a 20 hp water-cooled gasoline engine.
