Jim Bradshaw: South Louisiana man invented the best tractor safety insurance

It’s not clear whether Paul Trahan of Gueydan wanted to make money or just keep farmers from getting hurt when he patented his safety attachment for tractors in 1922.
He may have wanted to do both. When he started building the devices, there was some speculation that he wouldn’t be able to make them fast enough to keep up with the demand.
His application to the patent office said his invention was “a simple, readily attachable device … which will operate to prevent overturning of the machine … [and] protect the operator from mud, dirt, stones, and the like thrown upwardly by the spikes of the tractor wheels.”
The Fordson tractor was the best seller in those days. Its wheels were made of iron and had spikes on them that tossed up anything they hit, but the bigger problem was that the  Fordson, and other brands, had the habit of rearing over backward if the plow got stuck on something or simply dug too deep in the ground.
Eastern Implement Dealer magazine claimed that Fordsons killed 36 drivers in 1918. Pipp’s Weekly, a trade paper based in Detroit, said that Fordsons killed 136 men up to August 1922.
Trahan applied for the patent in May 1920, and it was granted as Patent No. 1,409,043 in March 1922. He announced the opening of the Tractor Safety Attachment Manufacturing Company in Gueydan in January 1923.
The Abbeville Meridional reported at the time that “demand for the Safety Attachment has been growing continually of late and it is doubtful whether the factory will be able to supply the demand by turning them out at the rate of ten or twelve a day.”
They seemed simple enough to make. The patent documents described an “attachable frame” that could be “positioned without danger of interfering with the operating parts of the tractor.” Drawings attached to the document show the frame projecting a bit behind the tractor so that “in case of lifting of the forward portion of the tractor” it would act as a brace and keep the tractor from flipping over.
There’s not much of a record to go by in judging just how successful the company was, or how long it lasted. It may have merged with another company or changed its name. The Farmers Machine Shop in Gueydan ran an ad promoting the Trahan Safety Attachment in November of 1923, eleven months after Trahan’s manufacturing company opened.  It may have been that the factory had closed and the machine shop took over production, or that the factory took a simpler name.
That machine shop ad claimed, “The Tractor Safety Attachment is the best insurance you can take on your life if you operate a tractor.”
When Paul Trahan died in 1937 at the age of 48, his obituary makes no mention of his device.
The 1930 census lists his occupation as a laborer in a garage, but that doesn’t sound right. His obituary says he was the major dealer in Vermilion Parish of J. I. Case farm machinery and “was widely known and one of the most prominent men in the parish.” He was a member of the police jury, and that may have played a role in his death.
According to the Meridional announcement, “Mr. Trahan had contracted flu in the early part of last week and went to bed after attending the Police Jury meeting in Abbeville Tuesday and the Town Council meeting in Gueydan the same night.” The flu turned into a fatal bout of pneumonia.
As for his invention, I suspect that it fell prey to a common fate for such devices: The deeper-pocketed tractor makers saw its success and began to make their own safety apparatus.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.