Granville Woods

Granville Woods (April 23, 1856 - January 30, 1910), born in Columbus, Ohio, was an African-American inventor. He attended school until the age of 10 to begin working as an apprentice in a machine shop repairing railroad equipment and machinery. In 1872, he obtained a job as a fireman on the Danville and Southern railroad in Missouri, and he eventually became an engineer. In 1874 Woods moved to Springfield, Illinois where he worked in a steel rolling mill. Woods invented fifteen devices for electric railways and received his first patent in 1884 for an improved steam boiler furnace (U.S. 229,854). In 1987, he patented a telegraph system for communicating with moving trains, which he called the Synchronous Multiplex Railway Telegraph.