Ummo F. Luebben

(1867-1953) lived near Milford, Seward County, and in Beatrice, Lincoln, and Omaha. Machinist, farmer, known as inventor of round hay baler, which he conceived with his brother in 1903, then patented in 1910, he revolutionized the laborious task of haying into a one-man, low-cost operation with a machine that automatically gathered the hay, rolled it into a round bale, and ejected it; after he sold manufacturing rights on a royalty basis to Allis-Chalmers in 1940, the company developed the basic concept into a new baler named the Roto-Baler, which was introduced to farmers in 1947. Consult Beatrice Daily Express, April 3 and April 7, 1908, p. 1 and Sunday /Omaha/ World Herald Magazine, October 5, 1943, p. C-5 and Beatrice Daily Sun, October 20, 1993, pp. A-1, A-2 and Norm Swinford, Allis-Chalmers Farm Equipment 1914-1985 (American Society of Agriculture Engineers, 1994) 290-291.

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