Air Conditioning - Don't Forget The Creator

There is a place in Florida that respects the almost-forgotten inventor of air-con who received small celebrity and died a beggar.

Thru the years, Willis Carrier has been credited with inventing air-conditioning, without which Florida would be an intolerable place to live. Most textbooks call him 'the pa of air-con '. And it's right that Carrier invented the 1st modern electric air conditioner in 1902 and applied it to commercial use.

But without Dr. John Gorrie and Stuart W. Cramer, who coined the term air conditioning in 1906, Carrier could not have done what he did when he did. And the state's growth in the 20th and 21st centuries can be traced directly to Gorrie. Whoever gets the credit - and probably all three deserve some - the invention arguably might be more important than Edison's light bulb, Edison's movies or Edison's phonograph.

This place in Florida, better famous for its internationally famous oysters, respects Gorrie as the inventor. While textbooks hardly mention Gorrie's role, Apalachicola hasn't forgotten what he probably did :

* There's the John Gorrie State Park and Museum in Apalachicola. * Gorrie Square in Apalachicola is named for Gorrie. * The John Gorrie bridge across Apalachicola Bay connects Apalachicola with East Bay.

He has also got been honoured posthumously in alternative ways :

* In 1914, Florida gave a statue of Gorrie to the nation's Statuary collection in Washington. * At least 2 Florida colleges are named for him : Gorrie highschool in Jacksonville and John Gorrie junior school in Tampa. * The School of Florida yearly gives the John Gorrie Award to the medical graduate most liable to become a successful GP. * The Freedom Ship USS John Gorrie was named in his respect.

So how did Gorrie invent this significant machine in Apalachicola? And why did he die a pauper?

Gorrie, trained as a physician who studied tropical diseases, came to this place in Florida in 1833 because it was the third largest port on the Gulf Coast, harboring ships carrying cotton to New England and Europe.

A resident doctor at two Apalachicola hospices, Gorrie became sure in a yellow fever outbreak that cold was a healer. He cooled surgery rooms with ice in a basin postponed from the ceiling, which led him to play around with synthesised ice.

He couldn't wait for ice to be imported from Northern lakes, so he invented a machine that made ice - a machine that laid the groundwork for modern refrigeration and the machine that Carrier made a household word.

In 1851, Gorrie was given Patent No. 8080. The first model of the machine and systematic articles he wrote are at the Smithsonian Establishment. A copy is on show at the John Gorrie State Park and Museum in Apalachicola.

Gorrie failed to benefit from his significant invention. Pauperised , he attempted to raise cash to manufacture it, but the venture failed when his partner died. Humiliated by feedback, financially messed up, his health damaged, Gorrie died in isolation in 1855. He's buried in Gorrie Square in Apalachicola.

by: Candice Mendenhall.

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