The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-10-16
GENIUS DIES UNSUNG
IN 4 LODGING HOUSE
David Redfeld Proctor, Pro
iector of Great Tower
Passes Away.
WAS ONCE A RICH INVENTOR
Models Of Various Devices Are Found
Among the Effects in His Bed
room-Was Scientist.

Chicago, Oct. 16.-David Redfeld
Proctor, 81 years old cousin of
United States Senator Redfeld Proctor
of Virginia, was found dead yester-
day in a cheap lodging house at 14S
South Clark street.
He had been in Strengthened cir
cumstances for several years, al
though he made a fortune from the
sale of royalties on an invention which
he patented in the early rosa device
which arrested and extinguished the
sparks from the tunnels of locomo-
tives, making the kindling of prairie
! fires by passing trains an impossi-
bility.
In the palmy days of the Columbian
exposition he was one of the most pic
turesque characters who haunted the
offices of Director General Davis and
Architects Burnham and Graham with
offers of marvellous plans for enhanc-
ing the beauty and magnitude of the
great fair.
Planned a Colossal Tower.
He designed the Proctor Morrison
tower, which was intended to make the
Eiffel tower seem a dwarf in compari-
son. For the rights to this tower he
was offered it is said, almost 100000
and company to build it was started
under the presidency of Engineer Nor
rison, the steel construction" bridge
builder. But the collapse of the Steele
Mackaye's "spectatorium" theater
caused the business interests identf-
fed with the fair to look with dis
favor upon so gigantic an enterprise
as that proposed by Inventor Proctor.
The great tower, which was to be 900
feet higher than the Eiffel tower at
Paris was not built.
He is a perfect genius" Architect
E. r. Graham said of Proctor at that
time. His plans are marvellous and
entirely practicable. 1t is a pity the
tower was no built. 1t would have
been an amazing engineering feat It
would have been the wonder of Lake
Michigan Shores for half a century,"
Makes Model for Big Bridge.
When Engineer Morrison was plan
ming to construct at Memphis. Tenn.
the largest steel cantilever bridge in
the world, he was not willing to I'M
dertake the task until he found out
whether a miniature working model
of the structure could be made In
then in Mr.. Morrison's employment and
he intrusted the work of model build
ing to him, after he had failed to in
duce the most expert jewelers. In the
country TO tackle the Job. The model
was to be only two inches square and
was to have 912 joints and almost as
many separate pieces. Proctor COM
pleted it in two months. The huge
bridge was constructed exactly after
his model. He received $4,000 for the
work.
The first working gondola launches
at the worlds fair were designed by
Mr.. Proctor.
Interested in Aeronautics.
After the fair he gave much of his
time to the study of aerial naviga-
ton. He built scores of models OF
flying machines, one of which was a
combination of aeroplane and balloon
which expert aeronauts found only one
fault with-its mammoth proportions
that rendered it immensely expensive
to experiment with.
When his lifeless body was found
in the dingy hole-in-the-wa1 room in
which he had lived and dreamt his
dreams Of astounding inventions for
the last six years. the narrow little
bed was simply festooned with tiny
hand carved models of flying machines
which he had guarded as embodiments
of secret discoveries that he claimed
to have made in the field of aeronaut-
les