(upbeat music) (motor revving) - [Narrator] There's nothing quite like that feeling of being in a boat out on the lake, the sun on your face, the wind in your hair, the freedom, the fun.

It's a feeling that comes from a Milwaukee inventor.

This is the story of Ole Evinrude.

(uptempo music) Ole Evinrude was born on April 19th, 1877, just outside Christiania, Norway, which would later be renamed, Oslo.

- Ole was one of 11 kids, he was the oldest son.

They emigrated to the United States when Ole was five years old and settled near Cambridge, Wisconsin, and his father began farming there.

- [Narrator] Evinrude proved to be an advanced student, but dropped out of school after the third grade to help out on the family farm.

He had a knack for tools and an interest in ship building.

- He built his first boat, but his father was so angry at him for doing that he smashed it.

But he had some uncles who had been seafaring people, and a couple of them had died along the way, so his father was really down on seafaring life.

- [Narrator] But as the descendant of Vikings, Evinrude continued building boats and found better hiding places to store his projects.

He eventually built an 18-foot sailboat that was undeniably well-crafted.

- Ole finally managed to put together a boat, and he started charging people 25 cents a ride to take them out on Lake Ripley, right here near Cambridge, Wisconsin.

And at that point, his father relented.

He kind of figured out, okay, I can see that I'm fighting a losing battle here.

This kid's got boat-building in his blood.

- [Narrator] When he turned 16, Evinrude left home to begin a series of apprenticeships in Madison, Chicago, and Pittsburgh, spending the next five years learning to operate a variety of machine tools.

- So it really was this very thoughtful progression of picking up the skills he would need to become an inventor and innovator.

- [Narrator] In 1900, Evinrude moved to Milwaukee to become the head of the pattern shop of the EP Allis Company, and developed an interest in building car engines.

He let his boyhood friend, Arthur Davidson, tinker in his shop, the motorcycle mad teenager who would go on to be the co-founder of Harley-Davidson Motorcycles.

- Ole was coming of age at the time when the internal combustion engine was completely revolutionizing so many things about our society.

At a certain point early in his career was making automobiles.

That company didn't really pan out.

He could have been Henry Ford instead of Ole Evinrude.

- [Narrator] It was around this time that Evinrude began courting Bess Cary, A young business-savvy neighbor who took care of his books.

Their love and life's work took sail on a hot summer's day in August of 1906.

- The two of them decided to row across Lake Okauchee for a picnic.

Bess, at some point said, "Wouldn't some ice cream be good right about now?"

So Ole rowed all the way back across the lake, got some ice cream.

By the time he got back he had ice cream soup.

He got this idea in his head, you know, if only I had had a faster way to get back across the lake.

That sparked the idea in his head that eventually led to him developing an outboard motor.

- [Narrator] Ole and Bess married that fall, and soon welcomed home their only child, Ralph.

Ole built his first outboard motor in 1907.

It was light, easy to use and dependable, making all other outboard motors immediately obsolete.

By 1909, the couple officially launched the Evinrude Motor Company.

- Their first method of selling these things was to do live demonstrations, where they would go out on a body of water and invite people to come and watch these things in action.

And usually what would happen is as soon as people saw it, they would say, I want one.

- [Narrator] The Evinrude quickly found an investor in local tugboat owner, Chris Meyer, who provided the capital to scale the business.

The company grew thanks to Ole's engineering, and Bessie's business acumen in sales and advertising.

- Now Ole was all about the, he was a gearhead.

Bess was the one who got the idea for the marketing campaigns that brought the outboard motor to the public's attention and resulted in them selling hundreds of these things right off the bat.

- [Narrator] By 1914, with the business continuing to ascend, Ole sold his share of the company to his partner, and essentially signed a five year no compete clause.

- [Bob] Bess had a lot of health issues and I think they started when their son Ralph was born and she never really did get to full strength after that.

After their initial success, they ended up selling the company and going into semi-retirement, did a lot of traveling, and they did that for about five years.

- [Narrator] Ole immediately began dreaming of an improved outboard motor.

He wanted back in the business, but his old partner wasn't interested in his new ideas.

So Ole waited five years, and in 1920 started a new company from scratch.

- So the new company they started to produce their lighter aluminum outboard motor was called Elto, ELTO, which stood for Evinrude Light Twin Outboard.

That company saw some success right away.

They were basically competing head to head with their old company and blew them out of the water, so to speak.

And the old Evinrude company started failing.

(motors running) - [Narrator] Over the next few decades, boat racing came onto the scene, and there was a need for a more powerful outboard motor.

Ole introduced the 18 horsepower Elto Quad, America's first four cylinder outboard.

- Yeah, it really wasn't arms race that was driven by racing.

Now, one thing that was happening around that time is another major competitor had emerged, the Johnson Outboard Motor Company.

After a few years of competing with Johnson, Elto merged with both the old Evinrude Company and another company in partnership with one of the owners of Briggs and Stratton, started a new company that they ended up calling Outboard Motor Corporation, OMC.

And that was the company that ended up battling it out with Johnson for outboard motor supremacy for decades.

- [Narrator] OMC out-survived Johnson Motors after better navigating the Great Depression to become the world's largest producer of outboard motors, a distinction it kept for decades.

Sadly, Ole and Bess would not see OMC climb to new heights.

Bess Evinrude died on May 13th, 1933.

Ole never recovered.

He died July 12th, 1934 at the age of 57.

A new generation of leadership emerged.

- [Bob] Ralph became president of OMC, and it was really under his leadership that that company really grew into a giant of industry over several decades.

- [Narrator] Ralph took the company to New Heights.

He ran OMC until 1982 and passed away in 1986 at the age of 76.

After his death, the company would face an uncertain future.

- OMC went into bankruptcy in 2000 and bought by a Canadian company called Bombardier, and they continued to make Evinrude Motors until just a few years ago.

They retired the Evinrude brand in 2020.

- [Narrator] While the Evinrude brand is no longer in production, Ole's legacy lives on.

- [Bob] I think there will always be something kind of magical about the idea of a guy being inspired to create something that he sees a need for and successfully producing it, overcoming obstacles and making their name and the object household.

- [Narrator] Ole Evinrude, a trailblazing engineer who was destined for more than the family farm, who despite a lack of formal education, built and perfected his invention with features like water cooling, remote steering, and electric starting, leaving us with one of the great gifts, the outboard motor.

(motor running) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)