Louis Gathmann

Who was Louis Gathmann?

Louis Gathmann, engineer and an inventor, started his career designing equipment for mills and farms; he is notable for holding numerous patents. By the 1880s, Gathmann's patents were in such demand that he had to form a company to help track and produce his designs. This company, known as the Garden City Mill Furnishing Company, made milling machines which were sold all over the globe.

Gathmann was born in Hanover, in what is now Germany. He moved to the United States in 1864, and eventually moved to Chicago where he lived until the end of the 19th century, when he moved to Washington D.C.

By the 1880s, Gathmann had made enough money to have his family moved to the United States from Prussia. He also had four mansions built, two in Chicago, one in Washington D.C., and one in Baltimore, Maryland.

Gathmann was very interested in astronomy and had three observatories built in the Chicago area during the 1880s, one of which was a domed observatory tower which he had installed on the side of his mansion on Lincoln Avenue. In the 1890s, Louis had invented a "Sectional Telescope Lens."

Louis was also involved in 19th century weather modification projects, and was able to illustrate the ability to modify clouds at will in the mid-1890s, long before General Electric found that clouds could be modified using dry ice. Louis Gathmann received a patent for his weather modification research and wrote a book, Rain Produced At Will on the subject which also had chapters written by respected scientific authorities of the era, such as Simon Newcomb.