Dr. John Gorrie named to the inaugural class of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

            Dr. John Gorrie is one of 6 inventors who will be inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

John Gorrie who lived from 1803 to 1855, invented the ice-making machine and is considered the father of air conditioning and refrigeration. 

His invention began with an attempt to cure Yellow Fever during an outbreak in Apalachicola in 1841.

He advocated the use of ice to cool sickrooms and reduce fever – at that time ice was shipped by boat from northern lakes until Gorrie’s successful experimentations with the rapid expansion of gases to create the earliest form of refrigeration.

John Gorrie has a statue in the National Statuary Hall collection located in the United States Capitol Building, and has a museum and Florida state park in Apalachicola in his honor.

He was nominated for the Hall of Fame by the City of Apalachicola in early June.

On September the 10^th, Dr. Gorrie will be among the first 6 inventors inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

The inaugural class also includes Thomas Edison, who worked for a while in Fort Myers on finding a natural source of rubber that could be grown in the US, Robert Cade who invented Gatorade and William Glenn who invented the HD-Max Camera.

The inaugural class also includes Shyam Mohapatra for his work in biomedicine, and Shin-Tson Wu for the invention of next generation liquid crystal displays.

The Florida Inventors Hall of Fame is located at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

Its mission is to recognize and commend Florida inventors whose achievements have advanced the quality of life for Floridians, the state and the nation. 

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