Frederick McKinley Jones

Frederick McKinley Jones was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on May 17, 1893. His father was a white railroad worker of Irish descent and his mother was black. It is believed that his mother died when he was young but her fate is unknown. His father struggled to raise him on his own. When Fred was eight years old, his father sent him to live with a priest in Kentucky. He wanted Fred to be exposed to an environment where he might have a better opportunity for gaining an education. Two years later, his father died.

Jones performed chores around the church in return for being fed and housed, cutting the grass, shoveling snow, scrubbing floors and learning to cook. At an early age, he demonstrated a great interest in mechanical working, whether taking apart a toy, a watch or a kitchen appliance. Eventually he became interested in automobiles, so much so that upon turning 12 years of age, he ran away from his home at the rectory and began working at the R.C. Crothers Garage in Cincinnati.

Initially hired to sweep and clean the garage, Jones spent much of his time observing the mechanics as they worked on cars. He developed an incredible base of knowledge about automobiles and their inner workings. Within three years, he had become the foreman of the garage. The garage was primarily designed to repair automobiles brought in by customers but it also served as a studio for building racing cars. After a few years of building these cars, he wanted to drive them and soon became one of the most well-known racers in the Great Lakes region. Jones eventually moved to Hallock, Minnesota to begin designing and building racecars, which he drove at local tracks and at county fairs. His favorite car was known as Number 15 and it was so well designed it not only defeated other automobile but once won in a race against an airplane.

On August 1, 1918 Jones enlisted in the United States Army and served in France during World War I. While serving, he recruited German prisoners of war and rewired his camp for electricity, telephone and telegraph service. After being discharged by the Army, Jones returned to Hallock in 1919. Looking for work, Jones often aided local doctors by driving them around for house calls during the winter season. When navigation through the snow proved difficult, he attached skis to the undercarriage of an old airplane body and attached an airplane propeller to a motor and soon whisked around town a high speeds in his new snow machine. Over the next few years Jones began tinkering with almost everything he could find, inventing things he could not find and improving upon those he could. When one of the doctors he worked for on occasion complained that he wished he did not have to wait for patient to come into his office for x-ray exams, Jones created a portable x-ray machine that could be taken to the patient. Unfortunately, like many of his early inventions, Jones never thought to apply for a patent for machine and watched helplessly as other men made fortunes off of their versions of the device. Unconcerned, Jones worked on other projects, including a radio transmitter, personal radio sets and eventually motion picture devices.

In 1927, to assist his friend with his movie theater, Jones converted scrap metal into the parts necessary to deliver a soundtrack to the video, he also devised ways to stabilize and improve the picture quality. When Joe Numero, the head of Ultraphone Sound Systems, heard about hiss devices, he invited Jones to come to Minneapolis for a job interview. After taking a position with the company, Jones began improving on many of the existing devices the company sold. Many of his improvements were so significant, representatives from AT&T and RCA sat down to talk with him and were amazed at the depth of his knowledge on intricate details, particularly in light of his limited educational background. Around this time, Jones came up with a new idea, an automatic ticket-dispensing machine to be used at movie theaters. He applied for and received a patent for this device in June of 1939 and the patent rights were eventually sold to RCA.

Joe Numero was presented wanted to develop a device which would allow large trucks to transport perishable products without them spoiling. Jones then developed a cooling process that could refrigerate the interior of the tractor-trailer. In 1939, Jones and Joe Numero received a patent for the vehicle air-conditioning device, which would later be called a Thermo King.

This product revolutionized several industries including shipping and grocery businesses. Grocery chains were now able to import and export products which previously could only have been shipped as canned goods. Thus, the frozen food industry was created and the supermarket emerged. Jones eventually modified the original design, so they could be used on trains, boats, and ships.

During World War II, the Department of Defense found a great need portable refrigeration units for distributing food, medicine, and blood plasma to troops in the field. The Department called upon Thermo King for a solution. Jones modified his device and developed a device that allowed airplanes to parachute these units down behind enemy lines to the waiting troops.

Frederick McKinley Jones died of lung cancer on February 21, 1961. He was recognized for his achievements both during his lifetime and after his death. In 1944, he became the first African American elected to the American Society of Refrigeration Engineers and was inducted into the Minnesota Inventors Hall of Fame in 1977. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush awarded him the National Medal of Technology posthumously becoming the first African American to receive the award.