Best Inventions Named in North Dakota, Minnesota

The Family Handyman magazine recently named its best inventions in each of the 50 states.

In Minnesota, the magazine says masking tape and scotch tape was its best ever invention. According to the magazine, “Both types of tape come from the same inventor: Richard Drew, an engineer for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (later 3M). To help auto body shop workers create clean paint lines on cars, he developed a masking tape in 1925, then branded as Scotch masking tape. Five years later, he’d create a waterproof, almost invisible tape. It was targeted for grocers’ food wrappers, but it appealed to Depression-era consumers looking to fix rather than replace old goods.”

In North Dakota, Family Handyman says cream of wheat was the best invention.

The magazine says, “In 1889, newspaper editor Emery Mapes and farm manager George Bull bought a mill in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Desperate to stay afloat during the Panic of 1893, operation supervisor Tom Amidon had a novel idea: cook the whitest part of the wheat as a hot cereal. The company’s New York brokers flipped for the product, and the company shifted its focus to making Cream of Wheat.”