Spalding County GaArchives News.....At 80 Riley Ellis Won't Quit 1971 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Bob & Linda Ellis http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00017.html#0004075 September 13, 2006, 9:48 am Griffin Dailey News 1971 Griffin Daily News c. Spring 1971 At 80, Riley Ellis Won’t Quit Riley Ellis whose mechanical genius has spanned more than half a century will be 80 years old June 21. But he is as current as airplane hijacking, purse snatching and fighting the Vietnam war. He has given thought to all three problems and has sketched devices he believes would help solve them. He still maintains his machine shop that stands almost in the shadow of West Griffin Elementary School. He hasn’t been in the shop for some three weeks now. Today he entered the Griffin-Spalding Hospital for what is expected to be major surgery. It will be the first illness that has stopped him for any length of time. But he hopes the recovery period will be short so he can get back to his machine shop. The other afternoon he sketched a device he believes could be used to fight hijacking airplanes. The pilot could carry the device aboard with him, Mr. Ellis explained. He could hook it up and activate it after he entered the cockpit, the mechanical whizzard said. Should a hijacker try to make his way into the cockpit, Mr. Ellis’ device would be activated when the would-be plane grabber stepped on a rug near the cockpit. This would activate an electrical current in the cockpit door. The hijacker who tried to open it would be greeted with an electrical charge. Mr. Ellis has spoken to some airline people about the device but hasn’t gotten anyone interested in trying it. To battle purse snatching, Mr. Ellis sketched a device which would cause a pocketbook to explode in a thief’s hand if he pried it loose from a woman. He quickly turned his pen to the Vietnam War. Cleaning out tunnels the Communist use in the jungles of Vietnam and Cambodia is a problem for U.S. fighting men, he noted. He sketched a mobile device with wheels on it which, he said, could be used to maneuver deep into such tunnels. On command from the operator, an explosive on the device could be set off. Mr. Ellis believes such a weapon could be used to shorten the war. But designing weapons is not his “bag”. He has spent a lifetime on more constructive projects. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s he was engrossed in marketing a cotton picker. It was the forerunner of the machines that have replaced field hands to do this job. The device was haled far and wide and its potential quickly recognized. But Mr. Ellis got involved with a company that wanted the patent. He sold out his interest in the concern, assigning the machine to it, but kept the patent rights himself. A federal judge ruled in the lobby of a Charleston Hotel that Mr. Ellis had to surrender the patent to the company. Mr. Ellis asked him since when could court orders be made anywhere except a courtroom. He put down the judge and came off with his patent rights. The way patents are handled today in bureaucratic Washington is one of his major beefs. He believes that the patent office is putting stumbling blocks in the path of many inventions. Mr. Ellis received his only formal education at what was known as McIntosh Academy. It was located at the McIntosh-Fayetteville intersection. He was among the few students fortunate enough to attend and recalls doing some of his homework in the sand around the building, using a stick for his sketches. When Mr. Ellis took a civil service examination he made such a high grade that the man giving the tests wanted to know where he was educated. When he told the man McIntosh Academy, the man replied he had heard of the small Spalding County School. Mr. Ellis worked for the Post Office in Spalding County and was the first man to carry mail by motorcycle and later by automobile. When he was young and fearless, his reputation as a driver spread quickly. Some people wouldn’t ride with him because they thought him reckless. In the early days of Indianapolis 500 race, Mr. Ellis was called on to pace the drivers one year on his motorcycle. He left them in a cloud of dust. They were to be paced at between 86 and 92 miles per hour. Mr. Ellis made it around at a much greater speed on his motorcycle. Track officials stopped him and asked him to keep within the pace limits. As Mr. Ellis’s reputation as a “born engineer” spread world renouned men visited his shop in Griffin. Among them were Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone and John D. Rockefeller. Gov. Eugene Talmadge was a frequent caller at the Ellis shop. Mr. Ellis recalls Thomas Edison had a hearing loss and found it difficult to understand what people said to him. Besides perfecting a cotton picker, Mr. Ellis developed the first pole setting device for electric and telephone companies, a cable laying device, an air inductor, and even such things as a watermelon slicer for the Georgia Experiment Station. The list of his inventions is almost endless. One of his current projects is to get a unique camera rebuilt. He had the camera box made to fit an exceptionally fine lens given to him by some astronomers who visited Griffin. The government scientists set up shop on a site where the fire tower now is located near the Expressway. They spent a year here and came to photograph a sun eclipse and other similar work. When they broke up camp they gave the young Griffin mechanical genius the lens. He kept for several years before he could scrape together enough money to have a camera box built for it. The camera has made some excellent pictures. He hopes to get it fixed and make some more. It is one of the many projects that will not let his energy rest, even at the age of 80. Transcribed by Bob & Linda Ellis Duluth Ga. Note: Riley was the son of James Rousseau Ellis and Mary Louise Blanton Ellis. Numerous articles on Riley were published in the Griffin Daily News. Riley was born 21 Jun 1891 died 25 may 1971. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/spalding/newspapers/at80rile1741gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 6.5 Kb