Innovation
A Brief History of the Pencil
One of the unexpected things I learned during our visit to Nuremberg over the holidays is that the city was the home to the first mass-produced graphite lead pencils, beginning in 1662. Before we visited Nuremberg, I hadn’t given the history of pencils much thought.* In fact, the only piece of pencil history that I…
Read More
Two Odd Bits and a Teaser Hidden in the Footnotes
Every time we take a road trip I end up with a couple of odd bits that I think are fascinating but don’t quite justify an entire blog post. (1) For your amusement and edification I offer two of these today: The shot tower at Dubuque , Iowa My Own True Love went out of…
Read More
Road Trip Through History: The Sawmill Museum at Clinton, Iowa
The Sawmill Museum at Clinton, Iowa, was our last stop on this year’s Great River Road adventure—and a fitting stop it was. Logging was a recurring theme this year and last year. Beginning in Lake Itasca in Minnesota almost every local historical museum or GRR interpretive center has had at least one panel on logging.*…
Read More