James Pickering Dovel

James Pickering Dovel, (26 December 1868 - 30 July 1948) author and inventor, spent most of his life searching for ways to improve blast furnace operation. Born in 1868 in the community of Pickerington, Ohio near Columbus, Dovel spent his early years running a farm for his invalid father. Still, his inventive genius did not go untapped. The hard work of farming turned his attention to the need for labor saving machinery and stirred him, at age seventeen, to invent a mechanical corn harvester. While the device was never patented, it was adopted by several manufacturers of farm equipment. The depression of the 1890s drove Dovel, his wife and children to the city, where he landed a job at Columbus Steam and Boiler Company. Within days Dovel's boss had discovered his talent and promoted him to foreman, launching a long career in industrial invention.

In 1905 Dovel moved to Birmingham to become superintendent of the Birmingham Engineering Company. While there he supervised construction of a blast furnace for Woodward Iron Company. Four years later he joined the Sloss Furnace Company as superintendent of construction. For the next twenty-one years, Sloss was Dovel's workshop for invention. He developed gas cleaning equipment, modified the design of the furnaces, and improved the linings of the furnaces. In all, some seventeen patents are credited to Dovel. Sloss's No. 2 Furnace, rebuilt in 1927, included many of these inventions, earning Dovel and Sloss a national reputation for innovation.Arthritis confined Dovel to bed in 1933, but it did not end his career. In 1940 he received the Modern Pioneer Award from the National Association of Manufacturers in honor of his "distinguished achievement in the field of science and invention." During World War II, Dovel worked by telephone from his hospital bed, advising blast furnace operators around the country in the use of his many patented innovations. At the time of his death, more than fifty furnaces were using his inventions.