I was interested in an article I read the other day and thought I'd share it.
The article was about the Zero Hour Bomb Company out of Tulsa, OK. I had never heard of this company, at least by that name.
It seems as though in 1932 the Zero Hour Bomb Company had a patent for electrical time bombs used in the oil patch practice of fracturing. This is where a bomb is set off against a formation of oil bearing rock thereby shattering or fracturing the rock and allowing the oil to be recovered.
Sometime after the war the company was looking for new things to manufacture. This fellow, Jasper R. Dell Hull, came along in 1949 wanting a job or so the story goes. Anyway R D Hull had invented a fishing reel of sorts by essentially putting a couple of tin cans together so that the fishing line could unwind between the two faces and thereby avoid tangling.
Everyone was pretty impressed I guess because they changed the name of the company to ZEBCO and began manufacturing the reels.
Who'd a thunk it.
5 years ago
2 comments:
From bombs to fishing reels. Wouldn't it be nice if some day all the people who make bombs would stop and just go fishing.
I work at a small parts manufacturer and came across some blue prints for parts we used to make in the 40's for Zero Hour Bomb Co. I just had to look it up. Thanks for the history lesson :)
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