In his lab in Highland Park, Illinois, Elisha Gray developed prototypes of the telephone, the electronic music synthesizer, the fax machine and other electrical wonders.
Born Aug. 2, 1835, in Barnesville, Ohio, Elisha Gray was a technological whiz with a strong interest in telegraph technology. He attended Oberlin College, and although he never graduated, he taught classes there in electricity and science.
He received his first patent in 1865 for the self-adjusting telegraph relay. In 1869, he and Enos M. Barton formed Gray & Barton Co., which supplied telegraph equipment to the Western Union Telegraph Co. Gray & Barton Co. moved to Chicago, and in 1871 its small plant narrowly escaped the Great Chicago Fire.
Gray retired in 1874 to focus on his own inventions. He created the first electronic music synthesizer by combining a small piano keyboard with electromagnetic circuits. The device sent notes over telegraph wire that were played by a speaker box at the other end. His first public demonstration was at Highland Park's Presbyterian Church on Dec. 29, 1874. In 1877, he staged a concert in Philadelphia that was performed live via telegraph in New York City.
On Feb. 14, 1876, Elisha Gray's lawyer filed a caveat for his invention of the telephone. (A caveat was an official notice of intent to file a patent.) A few hours later, Alexander Graham Bell's lawyers filed a patent application for Bell's telephone design. The ensuing conflict over who deserves credit for inventing the telephone remains controversial and has been the subject of many books.
Ultimately, the patent went to Bell. Some historians suggest Bell's lawyers had access to Gray's caveat, realized Bell's telephone would not work without some of Gray's ideas, and copied his technology.
Although Bell received most of the credit, Gray was awarded more than 70 patents during his lifetime, and his design is now credited as the first successful telephone prototype. His historic home in Highland Park, the building that housed his first telephone exchange and electric generating plant, can still be seen today. The company Gray and Enos M. Barton founded is now called Graybar and is on the Fortune 500 list of the largest U.S. corporations.
Copy Edited by Eryn Lent
