HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID
RG3028.AM: Silas Edward Bailor, 1857-1948
Records: 1899-1933, n.d.
Geneva, Fillmore County, Neb.; Atchison, Kansas: Farmer, inventor
Size: 0.25 cu.ft.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Silas Edward Bailor, son of Adam Bailor and Sarah Coombs, was born in Warren County, Ohio, on December 25, 1857. The Bailor family moved to Nebraska in 1876 and took up a tree claim southeast of Geneva in Fillmore County. Silas attended public schools and Geneva High School. Bailor married Della Adams, daughter of John Adams and Lena Rodgers, on March 15, 1883 in Geneva. They began farming five miles south of town. The Bailors had three daughters (one dying in infancy) and one son.
While working on his farm and at the foundry in Geneva, Silas designed and built the first successful two-row cultivator in 1892. He later sold his patent to the Dempster Manufacturing Company of Beatrice, Nebraska. In 1912, Bailor and several others formed the Bailor Cultivator Company in Atchison Kansas, where they produced cultivators, listers, harrows, and other machines designed and patented by Silas Bailor. Many of his machines were used throughout the Great Plains, especially in the lighter-soil areas of the Corn Belt. Bailor’s two-row cultivator received the “Highest Award” in competition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904.
Silas Edward Bailor died at the age of 91 in Wellington, Kansas.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
This collection consists of records relating to Silas Bailor’s inventions and their production and sale through the Bailor Cultivator Company of Atchison, Kansas. Included in the collection are patent documents and correspondence, business contracts, sales catalogs and advertisements, and a few miscellaneous items (mostly stationary/letterhead). The materials in the collection date from ca. 1899-1933.
Note: There is currently no description available for the photograph portion of the collection. Please ask a reference staff member for assistance with the photographs.
INVENTORY
Box 1
Folder
- Correspondence, 1925-1933
- Patents, 1913-1932
- Contracts, 1899-1926
- Catalogs and advertisements, pt. 1
- Catalogs and advertisements, pt. 2
- Miscellaneous
Subject headings:
Agricultural machinery
Atchison (Kan.) — Businesses
Bailor, Silas Edward, 1857-1948
Bailor Cultivator Company, The (Atchison, Kan.)
Bailor Plow Manufacturing Company, The (Atchison, Kan.)
Dempster Mill Manufacturing Company (Beatrice, Neb.)
Fillmore County (Neb.) — History
Geneva (Neb.) — History
Inventors and inventions
Midland Manufacturing Company (Tarkio, Missouri)
Revised 10-19-2007 TMM/jl/gm
