Ed Melroe outside his first factory in Gwinner, N.D., around 1950. Photo courtesy of Melroe Co.
Melroe: Fathers of invention
Family of North Dakota tinkerers builds global manufacturing giants
By Deneen GilmourThe Forum
Seventy-two years ago, Edward Melroe had a problem on his Gwinner, N.D., farm. His new combine was leaving valuable grain on the ground. So he invented something that worked better.
Forty-two years ago, Eddie Velo had a problem at his Rothsay, Minn., turkey farm. He couldn't find a man or machine to clean manure from crannies in his turkey barn. So he asked blacksmith brothers Cyril and Louis Keller to invent something.
The Kellers did just that.
In 1957 the Kellers' invention met up with Edward Melroe's sons. It was a big moment. Bigger than either the Melroes or Kellers could have predicted.
The result was the Bobcat skid-steer loader, a machine that would change the way work is done on farms, foundries and factories. Today the Bobcat is the flagship product of Melroe Co. and perhaps the most recognizable brand name born and made in North Dakota.
For the past four decades, Melroe Co. has been improving the Bobcat. Eleven different models are available in 75 countries.
Today Melroe is North Dakota's largest manufacturer with almost 2,220 employees worldwide. Its North Dakota factories are in Gwinner and Bismarck. Fargo is home to company headquarters.
Always tinkering
The saga starts in 1927, with Edward Melroe and his brother, Sig, buying a new combine - one of the first purchased in North Dakota. It didn't work quite right and he set about to improve it.
Ultimately, he did more than improve it. He designed the Melroe Flexible Pickup, a device that would pick up grain on uneven ground. In the process, Melroe founded a company his sons say has grown to more than their father imagined.
In 1947 Edward Melroe and his sons - Lester, Clifford, Roger and Irving - opened a small factory in Gwinner. They refined their windrow pickup and introduced a tempered-steel, spring-toothed harrow in 1953. Edward Melroe died in 1955 and his sons took over the company.
"He never saw the Bobcat," said Cliff, now 78 and living in Harwood. Cliff and Irv, who lives in Colorado, are the only surviving children of Ed and Mabel Melroe.
Try, try again
"If Ed Melroe inherited any outstanding traits from his parents, it was his obdurate resolve to see a job through," wrote Robert Karolevitz, author of Ed Melroe's biography, "E.G. - Inventor by Necessity."
A portrait of the Melroes during World War II. In front, Mabel and Ed Melroe. Back row, from left, Roger, Les, Evelyn, Irv and Cliff. Photo courtesy of Melroe Co.
The trait was bred and worked into
his four sons and daughter, Evelyn. Persistence built Melroe Manufacturing and kept it
alive through the difficult early years, said Irv Melroe.
The very first Keller Loader outside Eddie Velo's turkey barn near Rothsay, Minn. Photo courtesy of Keller family.
Born to become a Bobcat
By Deneen Gilmour
The Forum
If a customer had a problem, Cy and Louis Keller made it their job to solve it.
The blacksmith brothers specialized in making or modifying machines at Keller Manufacturing in Rothsay, Minn.
In the 1940s and '50s they solved a lot of problems - fusing two old plow shares to make one new one, making farm trailers with old tires and even shrinking tire rims when the standard size changed from 16 to 15 inches.
In 1949 Louis invented a single-stage rotary snow plow. FarmHand bought manufacturing rights and the machine rapidly became standard snow-moving equipment.
"God gave me a gift ... to see those things - well both of us - to see how things would work," Louis says. Neither has an engineering degree. Both finished eighth grade. "Education doesn't make you," Cy said. "You have to have it in you."
Trouble with turkeys
But one day in the spring of 1956 Eddie Velo presented them with a humdinger. He told the Kellers he needed a machine that would clean manure from tight corners in his turkey barns. It would be used on the upper deck, too, so it had to be light.
They thought and thought. "Goldangit, we've got to make a loader without a steering wheel and it has to turn in its own length," Louis finally concluded.
Easier said than done.
In their sleep, they could see what they wanted to build. Piece by piece, they put together a little three-wheeled loader.
The Kellers poked through junkyards to find parts for the prototype Velo wanted.
On the front, the Kellers mounted a hydraulically operated scoop fork. The tines were made from bars taken from Rothsay's jail, the only place they could find steel strong enough for the rough work demanded of it.
The transmission and front spindles came from a Plymouth. Ultimately, they assembled a machine that could turn a complete circle in its own length.
In 1957 they tested it in Velo's barn.
It made quick work of cleaning up manure and straw. The Kellers were pleased and Velo was ecstatic.
"In my operation, I consider this machine so valuable that I wouldn't sell it for any price," Eddie Velo wrote in a 1958 testimonial. That very first Keller Loader is now in a museum in Fergus Falls, Minn.
A hit at state fair
The Kellers built seven of their novel loaders, sold under the name Keller Loader.
Later that year, their uncle Anton Christianson, a machinery dealer in Elbow Lake, Minn., asked Les Melroe to look at his nephews' machines. Les and his brothers owned Melroe Manufacturing in Gwinner, N.D.
