The History of the Yakima Valley, Washington, Comprising Yakima, Kittitas and
Benton Counties, The S.J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1919, Volume II, page 464 
A portrait of Thomas J. Redmon appears in this publication.

THOMAS J. REDMON.

Thomas J. Redmon, inventor and manufacturer, who is now giving his time largely
to the manufacture of an irrigation pipe which he perfected and placed upon the
market, is thus closely associated with the industrial interests of Yakima. He
is numbered among the citizens that Illinois has furnished to the valley, his
birth having occurred in that state in 1865, his parents being Peter G. and
Rosa A. Redmon, who in the year 1872 left Illinois and removed to northwestern
Missouri, where their remaining days were passed, the father there devoting his
attention to the occupation of farming in order to provide for the support of
his family.

Thomas J. Redmon obtained a public school education supplemented by study in the
Military Naval Academy at Oxford, Maryland. He afterward took up the profession
of teaching, which he successfully followed for seven years, imparting readily
and clearly to others the knowledge that he had acquired. He next entered the
hardware business at Craig, Missouri, where he remained until 1890, when he came
to Yakima and for two years was employed in this city in connection with the
hardware trade. Subsequently he entered the grocery business and continued
active in the commercial circles of Yakima until 1897, when he took a drove of
horses to Missouri, after which he was upon the road as a traveling salesman for
ten years, selling whips. In 1899 he built a steam automobile, his inventive
genius culminating in this form. He used the car for seven years, being the
first traveling salesman in the United States to own and use a motor car. He had
never seen an automobile at that time and designed the entire machine. He
designed a chain exactly like the weed chain and he drove his car one hundred
thousand miles. He afterward designed a four-cylinder gas car in 1902 and
attempted to organize a company to build the car but could not do it, as men
with capital laughed at him, not believing that the motor car would ever come
into general use. The blue prints of his car show it to be almost a duplicate of
the Ford. Mr. Redmon then entered the hardware trade in Idaho, where he remained
for a short time but in 1910 returned to Yakima and began the manufacture of
irrigation pipe after designs of his own invention. Studying on the question of
irrigation, he invented and patented a lock joint pipe for irrigation purposes
and now manufactures this in Yakima, employing from thirty to forty men and
selling the product all over the west. He also conducts a large automobile
transfer business.

In 1892 Mr. Redmon was married to Miss Belle Dunn, who passed away in 1894, and
in 1900 he was married again, his second union being with Dora Read, of Yakima.
They have become parents of three children: Fred G., Dorothy and Thomas D.

Mr. Redmon is a Mason and belongs also to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows
and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He is likewise a member of the
Commercial Club but in politics maintains an independent course. Nature endowed
him with mechanical ingenuity and he has developed his powers to a high point of
skill and efficiency, resulting in the development of new and progressive ideas
which have taken tangible form in inventions and his attention and energies are
now given to the marketing of one of these inventions, which is proving of great
value to the western country.

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Submitted to the Washington Bios Project in December 2007 by Jeffrey L. Elmer.
Submitter has no additional information about the subject of this article.