When A. G. Rockfellow obtained patents for his self-adjusting gate in the 1870s, the people of Ashland, Ore., were not surprised. He’d been experimenting with self-closing and adjustable gates for some time.
Rockfellow had emigrated with his brothers to California for the Gold Rush before settling on Wagner Creek in Oregon in 1852. He never liked farming, but he was good at fashioning tools necessary to get a job done.
After his marriage in 1857, the Rockfellows moved to Ashland where he was a storekeeper, and business investor.
In the mid-1870s, he invented versatile hardware that allowed the installation of a garden gate that was self-closing and adjustable to avoid sticking when a gate or gateposts swelled. He designed another version for farms.
His adjustable gates were a hit at the 1877 Oregon State Fair, encouraging him to seek patents for them in the United States and Canada.
Rockfellow eventually arranged for the Investors Institute of California to manufacture and to market what he called “improved and beautifully wrought, simple, durable and efficient gate hangings and fastenings.”
Sources: Ashland Tidings, 5 Oct. 1877, p. 3. Ashland Tidings, 19 Apr. 1878, p. 3. Ashland Tidings, 19 June
1883, p. 3.
