Masonry Magazine December 1978 Page. 12
THE
ROUGH TERRAIN
FORKLIFT...
Its Revolutionary Evolution
Forklifts are now a common sight on construction projects-so much so that it is difficult to believe that they only became generally accepted about 15 years ago and were first used only 30 years ago.
The advent of powered material handling equipment represented the first great change in moving construction materials in several centuries. Prior to 1946 materials on construction jobs were moved by manpower and animal power-horses, oxen, elephants. It is hard to realize that concrete block were handled only one or two at a time, brick might be handled 10 at a time with brick tongs or 20 or so at a time with a hod, and mortar was mixed by hand.
And it was not until 1936 that a mason contractor, Reinhold A. Uecker of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, invented tubular steel scaffolding.
But things were changing! World War II had ended. Consumers who had been deprived of cars, appliances and homes for some five years because of war production started buying whatever they could find even at premium prices. The result was that the burgeoning demand for new homes caused a shortage of construction manpower. And, as is normal in such situations, mason contractors became receptive to ideas and products that made manpower more efficient and reduced material handling cost.
First Pettibone Cary-Lift was built on a surplus vehicle, around 1951, for use mainly in forestry operations.
At this point in time, the only powered equipment the average mason contractor had was a mortar mixer, a small hoist or conveyor, or possibly a powered wheelbarrow or two. In those days the conventional ratio of mason tenders to masons was 1 to 1 or, at best, one mason tender to 1½ masons. Keep in mind that this was the situation on building construction sites less than 30 years ago.
The first powered piece of material handling equipment on the scene was the power buggy. At first it was used to move and place concrete, taking the place of conventional wheelbarrows and Georgia buggies. The first units were manufactured by Bell Aircraft Corporation (Prime-Mover) and the Koehring Company in 1946. Their carrying capacity of 10 cubic feet or 1,500 pounds was roughly equal to three or four wheelbarrows. The power buggy was also faster in trip cycles than any man pushing a wheelbarrow. Whiteman Manufacturing and Getman Brothers joined the other two manufacturers in marketing power buggies a year or two later.
Use of the power buggy spread quickly. Mason contractors began using the buggies equipped with dump hopper