Garnet C. Brown Papers

Garnet C. Brown was an inventor designer. He helped pioneer both the aviation and the automobile industries. He was credited as the inventor of the Army's first electric bomb rack and designed the trigger motor for synchronized firing through propeller blades. His vocation was that of an engineer. Born in Springfield, Ohio on December 21, 1881, he had one brother, Horace; two sisters, Ione and Dwina. His father's forebears were of Scotch descent, and his mother's were English. The Browns chose to settle in Springfield because it was a center for farm machinery where both his father and grandfather were building reapers. For a short time Mr. Brown's family lived in Miamisburg. About 1884, his family moved to Dayton where he attended the city schools. As a 16 year old he attended classes each morning, then worked in a machine shop. The four years spent in the shop gave him the fundamentals of mechanical operations as a basis for an engineering career. He graduated from Steele High School in Dayton. Mr. Brown did not attend college.

At age twenty, Garnet was employed by the Dayton Electrical Manufacturing Company whose foreman was Charles Taylor, the Wright Brothers' mechanic.

In 1903 Garnet found employment in Toledo at the Pope Motor Car Company. From 1906 1909 he was the Service Manager (floor man) for the Imperial Motor Co. in Buffalo, N.Y. In 1912 he joined the Buffalo Electric Motor Carriage Company, where he designed electric motor cars.

Shortly after WW I began in Europe, Mr. Brown joined the Research Engineering Department of Packard in Detroit, Mich. He was with the Packard Motor Car Company from November 1914 to April 1917, working as a layout draftsman and gaining experience on some of the earliest aircraft engines. Here he helped to develop the Twin Six and developed the carburetor for Ralph DePalma's winning car at the 1915 Indianapolis 500.

Beginning in April, 1917, Mr. Brown spent ten months with the Willys Overland Company, working on design and layout of aircraft engines.

In January 1918, Garnet began working at McCook Field (North Dayton), in the Engineering Department. He helped design airplane engines and armaments, later became group leader, and invented the electric bomb rack.

Two years after the war ended, Mr. Brown became the sales engineer for the L.H. Gilmer Co. of Philadelphia; a manufacturer of automobile parts. In 1921, Mr. Brown invented the bomb release that Billy Mitchell used to sink warships during the first demonstrations of air power against ships.

From 1928 until 1936, Garnet Brown was the sales engineer for Bohn Aluminum and Brass Corp. of Detroit. His work was mostly with aircraft. He handled such products as engine bearings, cylinder heads, and other aluminum engine castings. Plus he worked with bronze and brass forgings for engine parts.

For a short period in 1937, he worked for Rov Day Piston Co. of Detroit, making high quality aircraft aluminum castings. Following this he was employed by the Dow Chemical Co. at Midland, Michigan where he worked on such diverse developments as aircraft wheels and a pump for pumping concrete down oil wells. For two years he was in charge of pattern engineering, designing and standardizing pattern equipment for large volume production of aircraft castings.

In 1942 he married Doris Louisa Dehmel, his second wife, the first Mrs. Brown died in 1934.

Mr. Brown's final employment was as sales engineer for Heli Coil Corp. for the Detroit area during WW II. Here his work centered around screw thread problems in equipment. Mr. Brown installed and repaired screw threads for Rolls Royce, Packard and many other corporations.

Mr. Brown loved to memorize and compose poetry, and competed in rifle matches. Among his treasures was a Brown Bess musket, used by Cornwallis' men at the 1781 surrender of Yorktown. At the start of the Civil War this gun was issued to his grandfather. Mr. Garnet C. Brown died April, 1976 and is buried in Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.