Powered Scoop Shovel / Bobcat™
One of the most popular objects in our collection is the Powered Scoop Shovel. Staff members of the Smithsonian visited us to view this object. This is the invention which eventually became what is known today as the Bobcat™ skid-steer loader. The object was donated to the Historical Society by Eddie Velo in 1981. Eddie Velo, a turkey farmer in Otter Tail County, needed a devise to clean out his turkey barns. He went to the Keller Bros. in Rothsay with a problem. He needed a machine that could quickly clean and maneuver and be lifted to the second story of his turkey barns. By 1957 Louis and Cyril Keller had built six of these loaders and sold them all to poultry farms. The one in our collection is the first. In 1958 Les Melroe met the Kellers and soon after the Kellers were working for the Melroe Manufacturing Company in Gwinner, North Dakota. Eventually, the Melroe Self-Propelled Loader became known as the Bobcat™.
