The Snowmobile: A Wisconsin Invention

Any Wisconsinite worthhis salt knows that the best way to survive the long, frigid, dark wintermonths is to invest oneself in a good project. If it weren’t for the inclementweather conditions, Christopher Latham Sholes may have preferred jogging overtinkering with the typewriter, and Carl Eliason simply wouldn’t have had theneed to invent the prototype of the modern snowmobile.

Born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in 1899, Eliason was raised inthe deep North Woods of Sayner, Wis.,and like most of his peers, he enjoyed hunting, fishing and trapping. Acongenital foot disability kept him from keeping pace with his buddies on treksthrough the snow on snowshoes. So he, like many amateur inventors in snowyclimes, began experimenting with other forms of winter transportation. After afailed attempt to outfit a Ford Model T with skis, Eliason began working on anover-the-snow vehicle he called a Motor Toboggan in the winter of 1924.

Working in a small garagebehind his recently opened General Store, Eliason mounted a 2.5 horsepower,liquid-cooled, gasoline-powered Johnson Outboard marine engine on the front ofa long hickory toboggan. The operator sat on a tandem seat situated above therear, single, endless track that propelled the vehicle forward and steeredusing rope-controlled skis mounted under the front of the machine. On Nov. 22,1927, Eliason received a patent for his “Vehicle for Snow Travel.”

Over the next 15 years,and through many trials and errors, Eliason produced roughly 40 machines out ofhis Sayner-based operations. At the dawn of World War II, there was talk that Finland wanted to order 200 Motor Toboggans, soEliason began negotiating to sell his patent to the Four Wheel Drive Auto Company(FWD) in Clintonville, Wis., in hopes of filling the massivemilitary order. The Finnish deal fell through, but the U.S. Army laterpurchased 150 all-white Eliason/FWD Motor Toboggans for the defense of Alaska.

By 1947, FWD experiencedan increase in its truck sales and witnessed a decline in Motor Tobogganinterest, spurring the company to transfer production to its Canadiansubsidiary in Kitchener, Ontario, where it would be closer to itscustomer market. The design principles of the 1953 Eliason Motor Toboggan ModelK-12 inspired the owners of Polaris in Roseau, Minn., when they started to buildrear-engine snowmobiles in 1955. This, in turn, influenced Arctic Cat, FoxTrac, Tee Nee Trailer and all rear-engine designs that came along in theearly-1960s. The Eliason/FWD dream continued until 1963, when the company soldits parts and rights to the Carter Brothers of Waterloo, Ontario.After one year, production of the Eliason snowmobile ceased. But its legacy,and the indelible mark it left on snow travel, lives on.