Bluefield Evening Leader

NEW ROAD MACHINE.

Grading Attachment That Can Be Put Upon Any Traction Engine.

Streets of Holdrege, Neb., have been improved and beautified by a very unique and eminently practical road and street grading machine, the invention of Elijah A. Hollenbeck of Funk, Neb. The machine was built by Mr. Hollenbeck himself, and notwithstanding its crudity of construction, owing to lack of facilities for turning out the proper kind of work, it has proved a success and a money maker from the very start, says the Omaha World-Herald. It is in fact a road grading attachment, so constructed that it can readily be put upon any ordinary make of traction engine.

The machine is very simple in its construction and seldom ever gets out of order or causes any annoyance to the operator. It consists of a frame attached to the boiler and running gear of the engine. On the left side, directly in front of the large drive wheel, is a beam carrying the plow. The furrow cut by the plow is just outside of the tread of the drive wheel of the engine, enabling the operator to cut a straight bank to any length desired. The dirt is dropped from the moldboard upon a belt conveyor passing under the boiler of the engine and deposited in the middle of the street or road to make the grade. The outer end of this elevator can be raised or lowered to meet requirements.

Mr. Hollenbeck, the inventor, is a young farmer who has lived on a farm all his life. He has had no special training as a machinist, his only education in that line being that gleaned from practical experience in operating thrashing machines and other kinds of farm machinery.