Inventions
Steam Shovel
Mechanical Engineering
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A steam shovel is a large steam-powered excavating machine built to lift and move rock and soil, and it was the earliest type of power shovel. Grimshaw, an engineer working for Boulton and Watt, built the first steam-powered excavator in 1796; William Otis received the primary United States patent for a practical steam shovel design in 1839, and his cousin Oliver Smith Chapman later developed the design further. Steam shovels drove major nineteenth and early twentieth century infrastructure projects, including railroad construction and the Panama Canal, before cheaper diesel-powered and electric excavators made the steam shovel obsolete during the 1930s.
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