US Patent: 272,238
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| Running-gear for vehicles
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Patentee:
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| J. Theodore Gurney (exact or similar names) - Boston, MA |
| Manufacturer: |
| Not known to have been produced |
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Patent Dates:
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| Applied: |
Apr. 01, 1882 |
| Granted: |
Feb. 13, 1883 |
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Jeff Joslin
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Description: |
| It seems unlikely but this patented carriage cab is reportedly the origin of the word "gurney", after the patentee. The "Gurney Cab" was a one-horse two-wheeled carriage that never became popular in the East but Gurney Cab franchises were successful in a number of Wester cities including Los Angeles and Seattle. Theodore Gurney's company generally avoided taxi licenses and undercut the prices charged by the licensed cab drivers. Gurney had a side-business in refrigerated trucks for delivering meat, and he also failed to license these. Gurney fought these licensing laws in court as an assault on his freedoms, and lost. Gurney Cabs were manufactured by the inventor in Boston and shipped across the country, which proved to be an inefficient arrangement that indebted the cab drivers and arguably led to the drivers committing various scams on their passengers, such as agreeing on a fare, driving the cab with customer to someplace out of the way and then insisting on a much higher fare. The San Francisco Gurney Cab Co. went out of business in 1892 but their notoriety led to "Gurney" being used as slang for cabs, for police wagons and for ambulances. In a 1966 article on the word, historian Peter Tamony that medical students began to use the term gurney for wheeled hospital stretchers, and that name stuck. |
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