Carl Eliason patents the "motor toboggan," the precursor to the snowmobile - November 22nd, 1927

On this day in 1927, American inventor Carl Eliason received a patent for an early version of the snowmobile.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that believes any times the right time to
learn about history. I'm Gay Bluzier, and today we're looking
at one of the great trailblazers in the winter sport

(00:21):
of snowmobiling. A wisconsinite looking for a faster, easier way
to go dashing through the snow. The day was November.
American inventor Carl Eliason received a patent for what he

(00:42):
called the motor toboggan. His idea for a vehicle designed
for snow travel not only created a new form of
winter recreation, it provided a much needed way for snowbound
communities to get around more easily. Eliason's motorized toboggan and
led directly to the creation of the modern snowmobile, a

(01:04):
contribution for which he was later inducted into the Snowmobile
Hall of Fame. And Yes, that is a real thing.
Carl J. E. Eliason was born in eighteen ninety nine
in northern Michigan. When he was ten years old, he
and his family moved to Saint Or, Wisconsin, a small
rural community in the town of Plumb Lake. Like many

(01:27):
kids in the region, Eliason took an interest in hunting
and trapping at an early age. Unfortunately, he'd been born
with a club foot, which made it difficult for him
to keep up with his friends, especially when trekking through
deep snow. At the time, his best option was to
wear snowshoes, but given his disability, those didn't make the

(01:48):
Upper Wisconsin winters many easier to navigate. By nine twenty one,
Eliason had started dreaming of a more elaborate solution, a
vehicle specially designed for the union challenges of snow travel.
To be clear, though, he wasn't the first person to
think of, or even to build a motorized snow vehicle.

(02:09):
In the northern US and Canada, people had been fashioning
makeshift snow vehicles out of Model ts since the nineteen tens.
Shortly after the car's introduction. They would remove the cars
undercarriage and then mount a pair of skis to the
front and a set of tracks to the rear. Those
converted cars were known as snow flyers, and they were

(02:30):
a godsend for rural residents, especially when it came to
mail delivery. During that era of experimentation. Several home mechanics
helped push the concept forward, including Joseph Bombardier in Quebec, Canada.
In nineteen twenty two, when he was just fifteen years old,
Bombardier made his own prototype snowmobile, but rather than rigging

(02:52):
a model T to run on skis, as some of
his neighbors had done, he just mounted the car's engine
directly to a pair of sleds, and, as if that
weren't dangerous enough, he also attached a wooden propeller to
the back of the engine, right in front of the
driver's face. Despite these risky design choices, his contraption reportedly

(03:14):
worked well, and when Bombardier returned to the idea as
an adult, he found great success with it. In fact,
he's also in the Snowmobile Hall of Fame. At the
same time Bombardier was tinkering with his homemade rocket sled,
Carl Eliason, then in his early twenties, began work on
a more practical approach to traveling over snow. It took

(03:37):
him roughly two years to develop a working prototype, and
when it was finished, he tested it himself in the
woods around sain Or, Wisconsin. Eliason's vehicle consisted of a
long wooden toboggan that was fitted with two skis and
steered by ropes. It was pushed along by an endless
steel cleated track or caterpillar tread, which was powered by

(04:00):
small outboard boat motor. Although it wasn't the first motorized
snow vehicle, it was by far the most reliable and
user friendly. It was also the first to be mass produced.
In nineteen twenty four, Eliason began selling hand built motorized
to Boggins in his hometown shop. Three years later, on

(04:21):
November twenty two, ninety seven, he was granted a patent
for his machine and began looking at ways to streamline
the maid to order process. Over the next decade and
a half, his company produced only a few dozen vehicles,
but at the start of World War Two, interest in
his product began to steadily rise. Eliason eventually caught word

(04:43):
of a large military order headed his way. Finland supposedly
wanted about two hundred of his vehicles to use in
combat operations, and the faster they could be made, the better.
Military interest convinced Eliason the demand for his product was
about to outpace his company's capacity. With that in mind.

(05:04):
He sold his patent to the Four Wheel Drive Auto
Company in Clintonville, Wisconsin. Their auto plant was able to
produce Toboggins on an assembly line, greatly reducing the time
it took to build them. The rumored order from Finland
never came through, but the U. S. Army did order
a hundred and fifty motor to Boggin's for use in Alaska.

(05:25):
The entire fleet was painted white to blend in with
their surroundings. Eliason's patent changed hands again in ninety seven
when it was transferred to a Canadian subsidiary of the
Four Wheel Drive Company. Eliason's motor to Boggin's remained in
production there all the way until the early nineteen sixties.
By that point, his design had been widely copied and

(05:48):
gradually improved upon, with the result being the kind of
snowmobiles were used to seeing today. Carl Eliason refused to
let his disability slow him down, and because of his
tenet city winter became much more manageable and fun for
snow seekers around the world. I'm Gabe Bluesier, and hopefully

(06:10):
you now know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with
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(06:30):
Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks
to you for listening. I'll see you back here again
tomorrow for another day in History class