Frank Zybach - Inventor of Center-Pivot Irrigation Machine

Zybach's patent, U.S. 2,604,359, was filed on June 27, 1949, and granted July 22, 1952. It describes a long pipe pivoting around a central water supply on wheeled towers about 200 feet apart, each driven by the water itself: a small line fed a cylinder whose piston worked a crank and ratchet to inch the drive wheel forward, and spent water was thrown to the sides so the tracks stayed dry. Cables to regulating valves kept the towers in line, with the outer tower set by hand as the master.

What the plaque says

Frank Zybach Inventor of the Center Pivot Irrigation Machine Born in 1894, Frank Zybach grew up in Loup Township, Platte County, Nebraska. He began inven- ting at age 13. In 1948, he developed a prototype of a self-propelled sprinkler irrigation machine. In 1952, the "Zybach Self-Propelled Sprinkling Apparatus" was granted a patent. After receiving the patent, Zybach went into business with A. E. Trowbridge of Columbus. They improved the design and produced 19 center pivots. Robert Daugherty, head of Valley Manufacturing, purchased the licensing rights to manufacture the Zybach patent center pivot in 1953. In 1954, Daugherty founded Valmont Irrigation, manufacturer of the Valley brand of irrigation equipment. Zybach and Daugherty designed and manufactured center pivots based on the strong belief in conserving water and increasing crop quality yields. After 1969, other Nebraska manufacturers followed in Valmont's footsteps. It has been said the center pivot irrigation machine is "perhaps the most significant mechanical innovation in agriculture since the replacement of draft animals by the tractor." Frank Zybach's center pivot irrigation ma- chine invention has revolutionized irrigated agriculture around the world. Zybach, who died in 1980, lived his final years in this quiet Columbus neighborhood. Platte County Historical Society Valmont Industries, Inc. Nebraska State Historical Society, 2016 Platte County Convention and Visitors Bureau

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Genoa U.S. Indian School Museum — 19 mi
  The surviving trades building of a federal boarding school that ran from 1884 to 1934 on the Pawnee Nation's last Nebraska land, where at least 86 children died and the cemetery is still lost.

More markers nearby

• Agricultural Park — 1.2 mi
• The North Brothers — 1.5 mi
• The Villasur Expedition, 1720 — 1.6 mi
• Andrew Jackson Higgins — 1.8 mi