From the Kearney Daily Hub, April 21, 1917
“Kearney has it and has it bad,” said the Kearney Daily Hub on May 14, 1902. “The dandelion is taking the town, literally overrunning it from end to end, covering lawns and terraces, and furnishing ‘greens’ enough to supply the inhabitants of a large city if the crop was harvested and marketed.”
Fortunately by 1917 the citizens of Kearney had a new weapon in their ongoing fight against dandelions. Several years before Ernest Gillette, a Buffalo County Courthouse custodian, had invented a “dandelion extermination rake,” which he patented and then manufactured on a small scale. In 1916 Charles A. Hazlett, a Kearney jeweler and optician, purchased Gillette’s patent rights, manufacturing machinery, and raw materials. Hazlett planned to produce the rakes himself in the basement of the building housing his jewelry store. The dandelion rake, as it quickly became known, soon proved popular. Hazlett, seeing a golden opportunity to profit from the hatred of homeowners for dandelions, promoted the rake enthusiastically and soon expanded his operations. He traveled to St. Louis in May 1916 and secured an order from the city for use in municipal parks there. He also persuaded a large hardware company to handle the rake and arranged for its sale by traveling salesmen. “Dandelion fighters in other cities have heard of the rake,” said the Hub on April 14, 1917, “and they cannot be turned out fast enough to meet the demand.”
Young women digging dandelions in 1911 at the University of Nebraska. NSHS RG2758.PH58-16
Hazlett insisted that all manufacturing of the dandelion rake be done in Kearney, with raw materials shipped in and turned into the finished product. In 1919 his company was relocated and a modern factory developed, capable of producing one hundred thousand rakes per year. Hazlett died unexpectedly in late November 1920. A brief item in the Hub on May 19, 1921, reported that the dandelion rake factory had closed for the season “after having concluded an excellent run and fulfilled the immediate market demand.” No further mention was made of the factory. However, dandelion rakes similar to those once manufactured in Kearney remain on the market and can still be purchased
