Samuel Calvin McLanahan, McLanahan Corp.

Samuel Calvin McLanahan designed nearly all of the equipment that came out of the foundry from the time he purchased one-sixth of McLanahan Corp. in 1880 to the conclusion of his tenure as general manager in 1902. Around 1890, Samuel conceived a way to wash clay from the rock in his family’s phosphate deposits in Florida. Inside a long wooden box, he mounted wooden logs and attached cast-iron paddles to them. Shortly thereafter, Samuel realized the need for a simple primary crusher that could handle wet, sticky feeds containing pieces that were too large. So in 1894, he invented the single-roll crusher to deal with the problem.