In 1845, John Lyon of Harrisburg, Iowa, patented what is
believed to be the first elevating grader. In 1845, John Lyon of
Harrisburg, Iowa, patented what is believed to be the first
elevating grader. Dubbed the “Ditching Plow,” it was designed to
excavate bank material and transfer it to a wagon moving
alongside by means of a cross-frame conveyor. The concept has
undergone a number of refinements and variations over the
following 165-plus years, including direct evolution of Lyon’s
towed machine, and conveyors of like design mounted on or
traveling behind motor graders. The towed elevating grader was
obsolete in the 1940s, and motor grader-mounted loaders fell out
of use in the 1970s. The largest and most productive descendant
of the Ditching Plow is the traveling belt loader. This concept
originated in 1940 when the Euclid Road Machinery Co. introduced
its first Blade-Veyor, or BV, belt loader as a means of most
efficiently loading its bottom dump wagons. At 54 inches, the
BV’s conveyor was wider than that o