Milk industrialist Elbridge Amos Stuart (below) created Carnation evaporated milk
and its famous slogan, that it came from “Contend Cows”. Stuart and a fellow
business partner founded the Pacific Coast Condensed Milk Company in Kent,
Washington. The company was soon renamed Carnation Sterilized Cream when
Stuart noticed a sign with the name Carnation in the window of a tobacco store
in downtown Seattle. That name was later changed to Carnation Evaporated
Milk. Nestlé acquired the Carnation Company in 1985.

Elbridge Stuart

1917

The site of the original Carnation Farms is located east of Seattle, in
Carnation, Washington. It is now used as a Hole in the Wall camp for
terminally ill kids.

Pictured is a cigarette dispenser in 1931 that doled out one pre-lit
cigarette at a time. It did away with the need for a separate lighter.

William Seward Burroughs

The patent for the adding machine was received by its inventor, William S. 
Burroughs, on this day in 1888. By 1887, Burroughs had manufactured 
50 machines. The straight adding and listing machine Burroughs had 
invented was the company’s only product; its purchase price, $475. In 
1890 first machines were demonstrated in banks in New York and St.
Lewis with some orders being accepted. The first large scale production
was undertaken in 1892. In 1895, sales had climbed to 284 machines.  

1915 ad

Xerox 914

The Xerox 914, invented by Chester Carlson (below), was the first successful  
commercial plain paper copier. It was first introduced to the public on September
16, 1959 and revolutionized the document-copying industry. The original machine
was presented to the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of American History.

Physicist and Inventor Chester Floyd Carlson was born
in Seattle, Washington in 1906

The original formula of Mountain Dew was invented in the 1940s as a mixer for hard liquor by Tennessee beverage bottlers Barney and Ally Hartman. A revised formula
was created in 1958. The Mountain Dew brand and production rights were acquired
by the Pepsi-Cola company in 1964 and distribution expanded more widely across
the U.S. 

1966