Celebrating 100th anniversary of the radial arm saw DeWalt invented in – where else? – Mechanicsburg

MECHANICSBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — The borough’s name makes up for, with precision, what it lacks in creativity.

It was a “settlement of mechanics” in 1820, as a sign at the borough line still says. Sure enough, a mechanic born in 1885 — Raymond DeWalt — invented all kinds of useful things in the area, including the radial arm saw, for which he secured a patent 100 years ago.

DeWalt’s descendants — right down to great-great-great grandson Finn Berkheimer, playing with what today is often called a marble run (Dolly Berkheimer — Finn’s grandmother, Raymond’s granddaughter — says “marble roller” is the correct term) crafted by Raymond DeWalt himself — gathered Wednesday with borough and DeWalt leaders to mark the day (which also would have been DeWalt’s 139th birthday) with a proclamation.

“He was always working on something,” Dolly Berkeimer said of her grandfather. “And I loved to stand around him in the workshop.”

Jack Ritter, whose parents founded what became Ritter’s True Value and who is the borough’s mayor, recalls DeWalt visiting the store in the 1950s — “right in the store, sawdust and all,” Ritter said.

“He showed me tricks and things to do with the saw, like special cuts,” said Ritter, who said he still uses his DeWalt radial saw almost daily.

Not the only person DeWalt taught. During World War II, with his company already a widely known success, the local superintendent asked DeWalt to teach machine shop classes — and DeWalt accepted. He taught the classes in the Wilcox Forging Company building, part of which still stands on North Walnut Street. DeWalt’s picture is in a school yearbook alongside other teachers whose last names weren’t on products everywhere.

The ties of DeWalt (which became part of Black & Decker in 1960) to Mechanicsburg are, by all appearances, little known by even long-term residents. The current owner of Ritter’s True Value, Kevin Fague, wasn’t aware even though his owns a hardware store full of DeWalt tools.

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“So once I discovered that, I thought that was really cool — something we’re probably actually going to drive on a little bit more to bring the community and the heritage of Mechanicsburg to the store, to kind of just make a big circle of community,” Fague said.

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