Editing Snowplow (section)

== History ==
[[File:Snöplog 1909.jpg|thumb|Snowplows in [[Sweden]] (1909)]]
[[File:Snowplow 1960 (JOKAMT2Ma68-1).tif|thumb|Snowplows in [[Finland]] (1960)]]
[[File:Snowplow in Jyväskylä.JPG|thumb|Snowplow plowing in [[Jyväskylä]], Finland (2012)]]
[[File:Snöröjning - Ystad-2018.jpg|thumb|Snowplows in [[Ystad]], Sweden February (2018)]]
The first snow plows were horse-drawn wedge-plows made of wood. The earliest reference found by the [[Oxford English Dictionary]] was written in 1792 in a description of [[New Hampshire]]:<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.etymonline.com/word/snow-plow |title=snow-plow (n.) |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website=www.etymonline.com |publisher=Douglas Harper |access-date=March 3, 2021}}</ref>
{{blockquote|When a deep snow has obstructed the roads, they are in some places opened by an instrument called a snow plough. It is made of planks, in a triangular form, with two side boards to turn the snow out on either hand.<ref>{{cite book |last=Belknap |first=Jeremy |author-link=Jeremy Belknap |date=1813 |title=The History of New-Hampshire: Volume III |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_G1WVO-O7C0C&pg=PA60 |location=Boston MA |publisher=Bradford and Read |page=60 }}</ref>}}
With the advent of rail travel and later, the automobile, a number of inventors set about to improve existing snow plows. In the US, the "snow-clearer" is said to have been patented as early as the 1840s,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/snow/removal.html|title=Snow Removal|work=nsidc.org}}</ref> for railways. The first snow plow ever built specifically for use with motor equipment was in 1913. It was manufactured by Good Roads Machinery in Kennett Square, PA. and was designed to meet the exacting requirements outlined by engineers of the New York City Street Cleaning Bureau.<ref name="NYC municipal archives">{{cite book|last=New York City Department of Sanitation Arc. 1881 -1931|title=Street Clearing Bureau|publisher=NYC|pages=book 6 page 58}}</ref>  Good Roads is therefore unofficially credited as the originator of the modern snow plow, though their horse drawn steel blade road graders were used to clear roads of snow as early as the company's founding in 1878 under their original name American Road Machinery.<ref name=HCEA>{{cite journal|journal=Historical Construction Equipment Association|volume=1/101/331|title=American Road Machine Company 1893 - 1895|pages=2}}</ref>  Good Roads patented the first four-wheel grader in 1889 thus making it the first pull grading apparatus patented in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|last=Berry|first=Tom|title=Iron Works: The Design of a Pull Grader|date=31 May 2012|url=http://www.constructionequipment.com/iron-works-design-pull-grader|publisher=constructionequipment.com|access-date=2012-05-31}}</ref>  Unlike most early snow plow manufacturers, Good Roads continues to manufacture snow removal equipment today under the name Good Roads Godwin, now located in Dunn, North Carolina. In the early 1920s Good Roads often advertised in The American City magazine that "...three out of every four snow plows in use throughout the whole United States are Good Roads Champions." By the mid-1920s Good Roads was manufacturing snow plows of various shapes and sizes for use on a wide variety of motorized equipment. Other snow plow manufactures began to follow suit as motorized plows were proven more efficient than other methods of snow removal.{{CN|date=October 2024}}

Carl Frink of [[Clayton, New York]], USA was also an early manufacturer of truck-mounted snowplows. His company, Frink Snowplows, now [[Frink-America]], was founded by some accounts as early as 1920.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3718/is_200006/ai_n8917320 | work=CNY Business Journal | title=After 80 Years, Clayton Plow Plant Shuts Down | year=2000}}</ref> For the winter of 1919, Carl H. Frink, owner of a tire and machine shop in Clayton (New York), manufactured and equipped a bus with a steel V-blade snowplow for Fred I. Dailey's Clayton to Watertown bus line. In 1920, Frink equipped a Linn halftrack with a snowplow and side-blades for F.W. Carpenter's Black River Bus Lines and started his snowplow business. The Linn Co. immediately started to equip their halftracks with snowplow and heavily promoted their superior traction; they dominated the eastern market until the 30s when the halftracks were supplanted by the much faster four-wheel drive trucks.<ref>{{Cite web| title=Linn Manufacturing Corp. (aka Linn Tractor Co.) | url=http://flinflonheritageproject.com/wp-content/uploads/wppa-source/album-67/1038957.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205131405/http://flinflonheritageproject.com/wp-content/uploads/wppa-source/album-67/1038957.pdf | archive-date=2022-12-05}}</ref>

In 1923, the brothers Hans and Even Øveraasen of Norway constructed an early snowplow for use on cars. This proved to be the start of a tradition in snow-clearing equipment for roads, railways<ref>{{cite web
 |title      = Canadian Railway Hall of Fame -
 |work       = Rotary snow plow (2002)
 |year       = 2006
 |url        = http://www.railfame.ca/sec_ind/technology/en_2002_RotarySnowPlow.asp
 |archive-url = https://archive.today/20121206001220/http://www.railfame.ca/sec_ind/technology/en_2002_RotarySnowPlow.asp
 |url-status   = dead
 |archive-date = 2012-12-06
 |access-date = 2008-10-03
}}</ref> and airports, as well as the foundation of the company Øveraasen Snow Removal Systems.{{CN|date=October 2024}}
  
Today snow plows are produced by numerous companies around the world and available for different kinds of vehicles such as service trucks, pickup trucks, SUVs and ATVs. They are installed using model specific or universal hardware and mount to the frame of the vehicle to ensure durable connection. There are manual, power and hydraulic operating snow plows. All necessary mounting hardware usually comes in set with a plow. Snow plow blades are available in various sizes depending on a vehicle type. Service trucks usually use a blade sized {{convert|96|in|m|abbr=on}} and more. Common blade size for pickup trucks and full size SUVs is {{convert|78|-|96|in|m|abbr=on}}. Smaller ATV snow plow blades are {{convert|48|-|78|in|m|abbr=on}} wide.{{CN|date=October 2024}}