Kickstand (1902?)

[Towse]

sagehen wrote:
>
> >From Bapopik:
>
> >   OED and Merriam-Webster have 1947 for "kickstand."  This is a 1902
> >"bicycle support," but diagrams of it show it to be the same thing.
> >   From BANGOR (ME) DAILY NEWS, 15 February 1902, pg. 11, col. 3:
> >
> >_BANGOR MAN'S INVENTION_
> >_George H. Wish Has Devised_
> >_a Portable Bicycle Support._
> >   A well known Bangor man, George H. Wish, has just filed application for
> >an invention which will be of interest to every owner of a bicycle not
> >only in Bangor, but in the country.  It is a mechanism which is designed
> >to support a bicycle, when it is standing alone.  The cuts, which appear
> >in connection with this article, together with the following abstract from
> >the specifications, now on file in the patent office, will explain the
> >modus operandi of the invention...
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~
> Remember the old style rectangular  bike stand that pivoted on the back
> axle and supported the back wheel completely off the ground? It was held up
> with a clip off the  end of the back fender when not in use.  It was harder
> to park the bike with a flourish since it had to be backed onto the stand.

Patent #571,979 (Nov 24, 1896) by Henry Otto, of Bloomington, IL.
is for something Otto called a "bicycle-leg" which looks very
much like a kickstand. Pop the patent # in the search engine and
then ask for "image" -- patents that old aren't available as
straight text.

<http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html>

Otto, however, didn't call his invention a kickstand.

Couldn't find any record of Wish's patent. The patent search
doesn't work very well for older patents and perhaps that's why,
or perhaps Wish's invention wasn't sufficiently different from
Otto's and he never got the patent.

Sal
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