Note: More than a century ago, Seattle Local 77 President George L. Brooks led a victorious fight in Washington state to get the first-ever laws on the books protecting linemen. He went on to invent the revolutionary, adjustable Brooks Hooks used by generations of IBEW members. Today, 90 years after they were patented, they remain the model for gold-standard climbers. In 1978, at the request of Local 77, George F. Brooks, shared the story behind his father’s invention.
At age sixteen, one beautiful morning in August 1930, I decided to be an electrical lineman, just like my Pa, George L. Brooks. Donning his “hooks” (lineman’s climbers), I walked across Alpha Street and started up a pole. It was easy to drag the gaff (spur) up the pole six to ten inches at a time, alternately shifting my weight from one foot to the other. In a minute or two, near the top, I paused, surveyed the landscape, and checked out the horizon for cowboys and Indians. None were seen anywhere across Shubel’s farm, even as far as Sycamore Creek, so I decided to descend.
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| Brooks Hooks, as diagrammed by inventor George L. Brooks, above, and displayed in the IBEW museum, below, have been used by generations of line workers since they were patented in 1934.
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“Hell's Bells! Woe is me!” The gaffs were tightly imbedded in the pole -- I couldn't pull either foot off the pole to step down. I was trapped. Finally, after a five or ten-minute battle, I managed to get one foot loose and step down a ways. But then I found it even more difficult to free the other foot from the pole. After a half hour of struggling, I had gotten down only about six feet, and I was tempted to holler for help. But the embarrassment would have been just too much. So I spent the rest of that forenoon trying to get down, and finally reached terra firma out of breath, exhausted and trembling.
Pa came home for lunch and I told him of my harrowing experience. He laughed, gave me the raspberry, then explained, “You don't pull the gaffs up; to get them out of the pole, you bend your knee outward, away from the pole, and at the same time, you twist your ankle so that you can pry against it with your foretoe. This way, you break a chip out of the pole, sideways, and the climber is out. "
That afternoon I gave it another try, but with the leg irons coming four inches above my knee, instead of down on the calf, my leg was splinted -- it couldn't be bent, so that I still couldn’t free the gaffs from the pole. After supper, I asked Pa if they made different length climbers for tall or short men. He replied, “I once knew a lineman, just five-toot-two, while another was nearly seven foot. Still, they both had to use the same climbers; but l 'm planning to make mine adjustable in height some way.”
For two decades or more, Pa had been tinkering with a model for climbers with removable and replaceable gaffs. Out in the Seattle-Tacoma area, back in 1912, Pa twisted his ankle so badly that he had to use crutches for a while. The crutches were so short that Pa had to bend over to use them. Ten-year-old Marguerite, my Sis, asked why they didn't make them adjustable like telescopes, so that they would fit anybody. It never occurred to Pa to run to a patent attorney, so later on somebody else made a bundle. But Pa realized instantly that the same principle was needed to' improve the lineman's climbers.
In September 1930, I enrolled in an eleventh-grade drafting class at Lansing Eastern High School. One of my first plates (drawings) was to illustrate cross-sections of various structural forms used for metals, such as: flat (strap); L (ell or angle); U (channel); T (tee); Round (or tubular); Hexagon; Square (box) and so on. Under each illustration we had to letter the coefficient figure, which we found in the Engineer’s Handbook. This numeral showed the relative strength and rigidity of each of the structural forms as compared to the same amount of metal made up in strap form. I noticed that the channel and T forms were more than double in comparable strength to the flat strap formation. I also remembered how heavy those flat steel lineman’s climbers were after lugging them around for only a short time. It gave me an idea, so I took my drawings home.
That evening I asked Pa, “Don't those climbers get pretty heavy when you wear them all day?”
Pa replied, “About 4:30 p.m., they weigh sixteen ton!”
Then I showed him my drawing, pointing out that climbers would be just as strong, using half as much steel, if they could be made in channel or tee formation.
His eyes lit up as he blurted, “Yup, and that ain’t all! I think I’ve got the answer to a problem that’s had me stymied for years!”
Next day, Pa came home with a piece of half-inch T-iron and a piece of sheet metal which he had bent to fit tightly around the T-iron, so that the sheet metal would slide along the Iron. He had drilled four holes, spaced about an inch apart, in the vertical rib of the T-iron. Likewise, he had drilled a series of holes in the sheet metal. Aligning various sets of holes, and pinning them with a cotter key, he showed me how to lock the sheet metal slider at various positions, 1/4 Inch apart, for a total distance of three inches.
Pa said, “Now, any lineman, regardless of his height, can wear his hooks just where he likes them best -- low on his calf or high up to the knee.” He handed me his new telescoping gadget, along with his ten-year-old aluminum model with the replaceable gaff. He said, “I want you to ask your drafting teacher if you can make a drawing of this.”
My instructor, Mr. T. K. Clark, agreed, saying that it would give me a good exercise in the use of the French curve, and that he would give me credit for five drawings. Engrossed as I was in this project, I proceeded to get ten drawings behind the rest of the class. But when the drawing was completed, Pa took it to a patent attorney, Samuel H. Davis, who executed an official “Evidence of Conception” form, which would serve as temporary protection while a patent was pending. Ironically, the patent was issued, effective May 1, 1934 -- just two months after Pa died.
During the three-year interim that the patent was pending, Pa spent most of his spare time traveling throughout the Midwest, getting manufacturing ideas, bids on the dies, and searching for an “angel” willing to invest up to $500 or even $1000 for the dies. In 1931-32, this kind of money would nearly buy the Waldorf-Astoria -- but Pa pressured one man until he finally gave in out of sheer desperation. Mr. J.W. Wolford, president and owner of Melling Drop Forge In Lansing, MI, and also the first President of the newly established Bank of Lansing, agreed to pay for the dies out of his own pocket, mostly because of his die-sinkers and hammer-men at Melling Drop Forge, who had no other work.
Pa recruited a crony, a Mr. Smith, retired lineman, to go on the road, taking orders for the climbers. So “Smitty” bummed the nation for the next three or four years, living on handouts and a bed provided by some generous linemen, keeping as his sales commission the $2 sales deposit on each order he took. Most of these original buyers never dreamed that they would be waiting for years to get delivery.
During these early, and difficult years of production, my brother “Bud”' (Clifford Llewelyn Brooks) did an excellent job of handling the shipping, bookkeeping, billing and, especially, in appeasing the buyers’ complaints about non-delivery of orders. He did get some help from us kids with the shipping details. Then, the patent rights were sold to Melling Drop Forge on a royalty basis. Later, Melling turned the distribution over to Mine Safety Appliances Corporation, Pittsburgh, PA, who sold them throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America. For the past few years, the climbers have been distributed exclusively by Stringer-Brooks Corporation, Browning Street and Highway 50, Lee’s Summit, MO, 64063.
“Smitty,” the initial sales staff and promoter of “Brooks Hooks,” died with his boots on, somewhere out in the Southwest, no doubt shortly after having some suds with the $2 commission from his last sale. He’s buried out on a lone prairie somewhere, God rest his soul.
While Smitty sowed the seeds, my brother Bud cultivated the sparce crops of sales, until Mine Safety Appliances spread the “Brooks’ Hooks” from the Yukon Territory to Argentina and Chile. One way or another, almost all of the Brooks family got their hooks into “Brooks’ Hooks,” but they would never have gotten off the ground (and up a pole) if it were not for the faith and foresight of Mr. J.W. Wolford and Pa’s old sidekick Smitty.