Today in Wheeling History: July 7—Walter T. Davis, Wheeling Stamping Company inventor, granted patent for plastic-nozzle ointment tube (1959).
Walter Todd Davis was born October 2, 1884, in Wheeling, Ohio County, the son of Samuel Powell Davis and Laura S. Baggs Davis. He spent his entire career at the Wheeling Stamping Company, the Water Street firm that grew out of the 1877 Nail City Lantern Company and became one of the nation's leading makers of collapsible metal tubes, lanterns, and lamp fittings. By 1950 Davis was listed as superintendent of the company's treating department, overseeing the heat-treating and preparation of metal before stamping. Over four decades he was a remarkably prolific inventor, patenting tube-making and tube-handling machinery, extrusion presses, molten-metal purification methods, and plastic-molding apparatus, most assigned to Wheeling Stamping. His best-known patent, granted July 7, 1959, introduced a collapsible tube with a soft plastic nipple in place of a rigid metal nozzle, eliminating the risk of metal fragments during ophthalmic and medicinal use. Davis also patented tools unrelated to his tube work, including a 1929 "flying machine" safety design allowing an airplane's wings to rotate into a helicopter-like configuration during an uncontrolled descent. He married Maxine Tannebaum Davis, and the couple last lived at 902 Warwood Avenue; an infant son, Leslie Eugena Davis, died in 1919–1920. Walter T. Davis died January 21, 1960, at Ohio Valley General Hospital, with funeral services held at Bodey Funeral Home in Warwood. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Wheeling.
To learn more: Google Patents (https://tinyurl.com/pwt7rt5u), Google Patents - Patents by Walter T. Davis (https://tinyurl.com/42eahaeb), Find a Grave - Walter Todd Davis (https://tinyurl.com/bnj7mz7b), Wheeling Intelligencer - Death Notices - Entered in Rest - Walter Todd Davis (https://tinyurl.com/munmcwa6), Wheeling News-Register - Funerals Tomorrow - Walter Todd Davis (https://tinyurl.com/2ndp56vu)
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; U.S. Patent Office, Google Maps
Walter Todd Davis was born October 2, 1884, in Wheeling, Ohio County, the son of Samuel Powell Davis and Laura S. Baggs Davis. He spent his entire career at the Wheeling Stamping Company, the Water Street firm that grew out of the 1877 Nail City Lantern Company and became one of the nation's leading makers of collapsible metal tubes, lanterns, and lamp fittings. By 1950 Davis was listed as superintendent of the company's treating department, overseeing the heat-treating and preparation of metal before stamping. Over four decades he was a remarkably prolific inventor, patenting tube-making and tube-handling machinery, extrusion presses, molten-metal purification methods, and plastic-molding apparatus, most assigned to Wheeling Stamping. His best-known patent, granted July 7, 1959, introduced a collapsible tube with a soft plastic nipple in place of a rigid metal nozzle, eliminating the risk of metal fragments during ophthalmic and medicinal use. Davis also patented tools unrelated to his tube work, including a 1929 "flying machine" safety design allowing an airplane's wings to rotate into a helicopter-like configuration during an uncontrolled descent. He married Maxine Tannebaum Davis, and the couple last lived at 902 Warwood Avenue; an infant son, Leslie Eugena Davis, died in 1919–1920. Walter T. Davis died January 21, 1960, at Ohio Valley General Hospital, with funeral services held at Bodey Funeral Home in Warwood. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Wheeling.
To learn more: Google Patents (https://tinyurl.com/pwt7rt5u), Google Patents - Patents by Walter T. Davis (https://tinyurl.com/42eahaeb), Find a Grave - Walter Todd Davis (https://tinyurl.com/bnj7mz7b), Wheeling Intelligencer - Death Notices - Entered in Rest - Walter Todd Davis (https://tinyurl.com/munmcwa6), Wheeling News-Register - Funerals Tomorrow - Walter Todd Davis (https://tinyurl.com/2ndp56vu)
Photo credits: Ohio County Public Library Archives, Wheeling WV; U.S. Patent Office, Google Maps
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