Friends of Richfield Heritage Preserve
  • Home
  • What's Here
    • Directions
    • The Property >
      • Google Map
      • Video
    • History
    • Maps
    • Nature Sightings
    • Memorials
  • About Us
    • What is a Friends'Group?
    • Reports to the Community
    • MillWrite News
    • Board of Directors
    • Bylaws
    • Board Portal
    • FoCH History
    • Partnership with RJRD
    • Incorporation
  • Get Involved
    • Contact
    • OUr Supporters 2024
    • Our Supporters 2025
    • Kirby's Mill Restoration
    • Education and Outreach
    • Volunteer
    • Donate
  • Events / Hikes
Jim Kirby
Picture
Jim Kirby was dedicated to “eliminating the drudgery of housework”,
leaving more time for fun.
Picture
Kirby on the H tree, Boston Township (photo courtesy Richfield Historical Society)

Growing up, Jim Kirby watched his mother at her endless round of housekeeping chores. He thought that women were stuck spending way too much time on monotonous drudgery, and that much of their repetitive work could be replaced by electrical appliances. With that goal in mind, he began designing and building such devices. 

Many people have heard of Kirby Vacuum cleaners. But that was just one company that decided to name one branch of their operations after Kirby. Kirby also invented improvements to electric dishwashers, irons, and washing machines. Kirby invented the first practical spin cycle for washing machines.

Prior to Kirby’s mass-produced “Laun-DRY- ette”, women had to haul heavy, soaking wet clothes out of the wash tub and through a wringer.

Picture
Kirby eventually amassed over 150 patents, most involving laundry or vacuum cleaners. But there was a sprinkling of marvelously unrelated sparks of genius: air conditioners, a fishing reel, a lake. Here is a list of his patents.

By age 35, Kirby had made his fortune. 

Able to go anywhere and do anything he wanted, he chose to move from his native Cleveland twenty miles south to the town of Richfield. Beautiful though the land was, Richfield did not have the electricity he needed. So Kirby designed and built a hydroelectric mill to generate the power he needed. 

But before he could build the mill, he had to dam up the creek to create a millpond. Trouble is, artificial ponds fill up with silt and have to be dredged out periodically. But this was the guy who was all about avoiding drudgery. He simply didn’t want dirt getting into his lake in the first place. So he devised dams that would let clear water in, but keep muddy storm water out. The storm water would be diverted into huge drain pipes that ran under the lake bed. As far as anyone knows, this is the world’s only patented lake. Kirby also designed a sled so that would permit a man to clear out the drain occasionally. 

While the lake was filling up, Kirby built his house just above the high water line. Next he constructed the mill with a wheel that balanced on ball bearings and could turn with just a trickle of water. The room above the generator became his workshop. When he wanted to take a break from tinkering he could pull down the hinged stairway and dive off the little porch into deep water. 

Just for fun he built a dance hall on old streetcar springs and ran a swinging bridge across the dam spillway. He put up a combination picnic shelter/boat landing just below the main house. He constructed a pier that ran halfway across the lake, and a boathouse with a dock on the far shore. He hired a botanist to travel around Ohio and bring back unusual specimens of wildflowers for his garden. He stocked his lake with fish and then trained some of them as pets who would swim up to him so he could tickle them under their fishy chins. 

Kirby opened his lavish grounds to Richfield townsfolk every Monday and Friday (and by special request). Within a few years, Kirby felt he needed a bigger lake for bigger fish. He got permission from his nearest upstream neighbor to create a shared lake. 

After fifteen years at this estate, Jim Kirby and his wife Nellie moved. Their new house, designed by Jim, was barely a mile away from the old one. It also soon had a large lake. 

Jim continued inventing, keeping up with his business interests, raising prize cattle, traveling with Nellie, and of course, fishing. 

After Nellie died, he retired to Florida, where he developed the Oceanside shopping center. 


Picture
Kirby paddling on his patented lake - Photo courtesy of the Richfield Historical Society


Picture
Kirby stepping out his back door - photo courtesy of GSNEO archives


Picture
Jim’s mother was Sylvia Bigelow, a great-grandaughter of Richfield pioneers John & Lydia Bigelow. Jim and his brother, Walter, were close to their large extended family. The Bigelow cousins organized annual gatherings from 1914 -1950. Photo courtesy of Richfield Historical Society.
Picture
Jim Kirby in his mill


James Blaine Kirby: everything we know so far

Born:  September 28, 1884,  Cleveland , Ohio  

Parents:  James D. Kirby & Sylvia Bigelow Kirby.

He may have been named for James Blaine, the  Republican candidate for president  in 1884.  

Grew up at 54 Marvin Ave  on Cleveland’s west side, along with his brother Walter ( born 1895) and cousin Bessie ( born 1889). 

Around age twelve  Jim  was inspired by a  YMCA class called “Electricity and Magic” .  He turned his parent’s backyard barn into his workshop.    Challenged by a  teacher,  he built a working model of a grain mill.  When he was unable to afford a model train set that he coveted, he constructed  his own model.     

He attended Lincoln West High School .  He was interested in chemistry- but not in the humanities courses he was forced to take.   He left high school after three years.  

After leaving school he worked in a machine shop but soon recognized that he wanted to be his own boss.   To save money for his own shop he took on two side jobs.  He assembled newspapers for the Cleveland Leader and became a lamplighter, walking a four mile route every evening and morning.

At age 17 -20, he hacked into unused telephone wires  to provide a private phone exchange  for his group of friends.  

One of Kirby’s first commissions after he opened his own shop was to devise a recording machine for the telephone of a  doctor’s office.   It worked so well that the doctor had it patented.   This incident taught Kirby to apply for patents under his own name if he was going to receive credit for his work.     

1906  Kirby built his  first vacuum cleaner.   Although it was an improvement on existing technology , it used a water based filtration system – thus was bulky and required two people to operate. 

1908 first patent  granted – a vibrator for motion cure 

Undated picture postcards from this time show Kirby at various hunting and fishing camps.  

September 2, 1909  Married  Hazel Hackett,  a teacher. 

 

1910 production begins on improved, portable vacuum cleaner by Frantz Premier Company.   E.L. Frantz was the real estate agent who sold Kirby an apartment building.  Kirby showed Frantz his new invention and Frantz decided to manufacture it.    

1912 Kirby developed a non-electric  vacuum  nicknamed   “The Grasshopper”  for rural housewives.   

1912  Jim & Hazel’s first child ,  James Vernon ,  born

1914   Jim helps organize a reunion of the his mother’s family ” The Bigelow     Cousins”.  

1916   LaunDRYette Compny  founded by  Arthur Betz  based on Kirby’s designs.   The LaunDRYette was the first commercially successful washing machine with a spin “extractor” cycle.   The company declined to make the continual improvements that Kirby urged, and competition forced them out of business in 1926.  

With American entry into The Great War,  Kirby became a “dollar-a-year- man” . He was  assigned  to expidite the conversion of Scott and Fetzer’s  general machine shop to production of flare guns. .   

1917  second child  Doris Averne  born

1918  third child  Jeanette Elaine born

Kirby was impressed with Scott and Fetzer.  At the end of the war, Kirby suggested that they might like to go into production of his newest model of vacuum cleaner.   Scott  and  Fetzer begin production of Kirby’s  Vacuette in 1919.

Also in 1919, Kirby bought the  Raymond Oviatt farm in West Richfield. He applied for the patent on his lake design as he was he began putting the design into ractice on his farm.  

1920  Invited the neighbors in to picnic Mondays & Fridays

1921  Married  Nellie Heller Bigelow  on  March 1

 Nellie was a school teacher.    Nellie’s family came from Ghent Village in Bath her 

grandfather Edward Heller owned the Yellow Creek Grist Mill.     House on the lake finshed.

1922 Mill constructed. 

       Bought the old school  house ( Richfield Academy ) with burnt roof for $2,000.  He sold it to the Masonic Lodge in 1926  for  $2,600  

1923 dance hall on street car springs built at the head of the lake.  First event held there was the Vacuette Company picnic complete with barbeque and orchestra. Niece Virginia Kirby Baumgartner later called her Uncle Jim’s place  “a story book world”  ; “ a castle in the country  with a butler and a maid and a big beautiful lake and a log cabin”.    

Kirby’s brother Walter acts as an agent to purchase materials at a better prices than than Jim would be able to negotiate.

1924 Construction of upstream dam in partnership with neighbors Clarence and Clara Neal 

1925 Committee work to bring electric grid to the Township is successful.  

1925  Builds electric cart for paraplegic man

1927.  contracted with the Apex Electrical Manufacturing Company to begin production of vastly improved washing machines.  The president of the company is Clarence Frantz, one of the brothers who founded  the Premier Vacuuming Cleaner Company based on Kirby’s designs.  Kirby eventually became an Apex trustee.  

1931 article described Kirby estate as “the Catskills of Ohio” & describes turning into the tree-lined driveway:   Here it was cool.  The rustling of the leaves mingled with the splash of brook against stone.  A turn in the road and there you saw the Kirby home… On the left, a huge water wheel slowly revolved, presenting a picture which might have been taken 50 years ago.  A lake, a half mile in circumference, lay in back of the wheel.  Varieties of fish brought from nearly every part of the country swim in the lake. Mountain trout, brought from the sparkling streams of Northern Michigan and Wisconsin wilds, Canada, and the mountains, swim there also.  Graciously, the inventor took a reporter and photographer around the entire estate.  Trout pools ran through the place. Here, in the middle of the forest, a shallow stream ran. Here, under a rock, the pool grew deep, and here, one, two, and three pound trout lurked. Ferns and wildflowers grew in profusion…….SO natural are the lakes, the trees the flowers and the streams that the visitor would say they had always been there.  But careful planning by Kirby has made those things which were artificial as real as if they were in their natural state.  

Even the prodigious bullfrogs which croak loudly and dismally through the night have been imported from Canada.  They are Kirby’s pets.  He feeds the fish from his hand.  If Kirby wants to have a fish fry for his friends.  , he simply takes rod and reel, whips the fly into one of his trout streams and angles for his luck. And he has plenty for the streams and lakes are well stocked…..   

1933 Air conditioning of Kirby’s house via cold spring water on roof 

1935 The first Scott & Fetzer Vacuum named “Kirby “after its inventor

1936  Kirby comes up with this “least successful invention:  The “bloodless fox hunt”   After trying hunting  he said he “lost all desire to kill”.  According to a 1936 news clipping, his new idea was to set a pack of beagles after a fox. “ The fox knows the beagles can’t catch up.  So the fox takes his time and the hunters follow on foot.”

1936 builds new house just  ½ mile away. First house in Richfield  w/ elevator.   Built by the Ellis brothers.    Spring-fed lake on divide between  Furnace Run and Rocky River watersheds.   

1937  Sold old estate to the Cleveland Girl Scouts- and helped them to with the purchase . 

Herd of prize beef cattle being raised at new home

1940 Wedding of Nellie’s niece Mollie Davis to Paul McKisson at the Kirby Farm

1941 & 1956 lawsuits for patent infringement 

1949 property surveyed at Mackie’s Lake / North Fratenach Township/ Eastern Ontario.    The “Scott- Kirby Cottage” built c. 1950

1956 Auction of prize  cattle herd auction at the Kirby Farm

1956 Opened Oceanside plaza in Pompano Bach FL 

1961 Nellie died February 12 in Pompano Beach  Florida

Jim sold his Ohio home to Ted & Alberta McCormick  and moved permanently to Florida 

Married Barbara Lawson Pinner on July 31st

Died:   June  7, 1971 Fort Lauderdale, Florida 

Buried in Bath center cemetery – near the Heller ( Nellie’s family ) graves


Sources

"Kirby- The Man Behind Less Work in the Home"   Richard K. Lotz, Machine Design, July 1947

Lee Maxwell, expert on vintage American washing machines:  By his inventions and association with the Laun-Dry-Ette washer I would say Mr Kirby belongs in the washing machine hall of fame (if there were such a thing). The Laun-Dry-Ette was the first machine to have been mass produced which combined the washing and the spinner in the same tub. There are patents which precede Kirby’s which propose washing and spinning in the same tub but those patents never resulted in a successfully mass produced machine. Kirby did not invent the centrifugal spinner but his “inventions” made them work successfully. When I give tours in my museum the Laun-Dry-Ette is always one of the favorite demonstrations. -  http://www.oldewash.com/index.asp

Laun-DRY-Ette ads:  http://oldapplianceads.com/laun-dry-ette-washer/

Great niece Gale Betterly

S. Barone for Mackie Lake information

Kirby as a major trustee of Apex http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/238/867/247899/   plus numerous patent grants

Bigelow  Family reunion notebook – Richfield Historical Society archives

Floyd Prickett Swan diary  - RHS for 1922 Kirby Purchase of old school house,   1923 construction dance floor, 1933 roof top air conditioning, 1937 beef cattle  

Mark Mitchell  for pictures and info 

Heller Family notebook – Bath Historical Society

Letter from Jim Kirby describing care of the property

1936 property description 

Richfield Reunion souvenier booklets

Kirby Co, website 

News clippings

Thanks to Leah Krulik who gathered genealogical data

Projects

Kirby's Mill Restoration
Historic Home Stabilization
Native Species Restoration

Contact Us

Friends of Richfield Heritage Preserve
P.O. Box 194 
Richfield, OH 44286-0194
​(Our address change took place in October 2023.  Our former address is the home of our founder who is still very involved in Friends.  He will make sure that any mail sent to the old address will get to the right place!)  
​

[email protected]

​© COPYRIGHT 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • Home
  • What's Here
    • Directions
    • The Property >
      • Google Map
      • Video
    • History
    • Maps
    • Nature Sightings
    • Memorials
  • About Us
    • What is a Friends'Group?
    • Reports to the Community
    • MillWrite News
    • Board of Directors
    • Bylaws
    • Board Portal
    • FoCH History
    • Partnership with RJRD
    • Incorporation
  • Get Involved
    • Contact
    • OUr Supporters 2024
    • Our Supporters 2025
    • Kirby's Mill Restoration
    • Education and Outreach
    • Volunteer
    • Donate
  • Events / Hikes