Abijah McCall was a co-inventor of the Fresno Scraper, a horse-drawn (and later, tractor-drawn) earth-moving machine upon which modern road- and canal-building equipment is based. Along with his partner

Frank Dusy Frank Dusy (December 17, 1837 – November 9, 1898) was an early business leader of Selma, California and a co-inventor of the Fresno Scraper, the basis of most modern earth-moving machinery. On June 16, 1885, Dusy and his partner Abijah McCall we ...

, McCall devised an improvement on the Buck Scraper, invented by

James Porteous James Porteous (1848 – 1922) was a Scottish-American inventor and wainwright, renowned for devising the Fresno scraper. Biography James Porteous was born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. His father, William Porteous, had been a ...

. On June 15, 1885, McCall and Dusy received U.S.

Patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...

320,055 for their version of the scraper. Porteous purchased the patents held by Dusy and McCall and also a patent held by William Deidrick as he perfected the scraper, which Porteous also manufactured at his factory in

Fresno, California Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

. The scraper was widely used in the Western United States and also put into use by U.S. engineers building the

Panama Canal The Panama Canal () is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Caribbean Sea with the Pacific Ocean. It cuts across the narrowest point of the Isthmus of Panama, and is a Channel (geography), conduit for maritime trade between th ...

. Deidrick, Dusy, and McCall were all early residents of

Selma, California Selma is a city in Fresno County, California. The population was 24,674 at the 2020 census, up from 23,319 at the 2010 census and 19,240 at the 2000 census. Selma is located southeast of Fresno, at an elevation of 308 feet (94 m). Geograph ...

, where McCall Avenue is named for McCall. McCall reputedly used a Fresno Scraper in building the road which runs through Selma and north to Clovis, California.

References

* Haddock, Keith. ''Earthmoving Machinery''. St. Paul, Minn.: MBI Publishing Company, 1998. * Lay, M.G. ''Ways of the World: A History of the World's Roads and the Vehicles that Used Them''. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992. * McFarland, J. Randall ''Centennial Selma: Biography of a California Community's First 100 Years''. Selma, Calif.: McFarland/Selma Enterprise, 1980. ASIN B0006E22C4 * McFarland, J. Randall, "Water for a Thirsty Land -- The Consolidated Irrigation District and Its Canal Development History", Selma, Calif.: Consolidated Irrigation District, 1996.

External links

Bell, Diana. Speech to 1997 ASHGR Convention

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCall, Abijah Engineers from California 19th-century American inventors Year of birth missing Year of death missing People from Selma, California