Jan. 14, 2010 - That Gail Borden is best remembered in Texas history for being an inventor would seem an unlikely legacy. Borden, like Thomas Edison, doesn't always get full credit from scientists because he had little formal education and was considered a dabbler by those who failed to patent anything of note.
Even if he hadn't started dabbling in the creation of products like a meat biscuit, Borden's name would pop up in history books as the publisher of the first newspaper in Texas, as the creator of the first topographical map of the state and as a collector of customs for the Port of Galveston during the days of the Republic.
The newspaper was the Telegraph and Texas Land Register, which he published in partnership with his brother Thomas. Gail Borden is believed to have written the headline that became the rallying cry for Texas independence: "Remember the Alamo!"
In gratitude for his service to Texas during the revolution, Sam Houston appointed Borden collector of customs for the Port of Galveston. Borden served in that post for a little more than a year before Mirabeau Lamar, who succeeded Houston, removed him for reasons we assume were clear to Lamar. Borden later served a second term, but resigned after a spat with Houston.
Borden's subsequent dabblings resulted in the creation of what he called a "terraqueous machine," which was essentially a wagon with a sail that could attain great speeds when the wind was right. Steering the machine was similar to steering a boat and it created some real interest, but during a public demonstration it veered into a lake and sank. A more positive result was his invention of the Lazy Susan.
A conversation with his wife Penelope about how men traveling long distances across uninhabited country must get awfully hungry got Borden to thinking about ways that food might be preserved without refrigeration. His father back in New York had preserved the sap of maple trees by boiling it into syrup. Why couldn't he do the same thing with meat?
As it turned out, he couldn't. He also tried baking and drying it but neither method produced a meat that might be considered edible. Finally, he boiled a side of beef down to just a few pounds, mixed it with flour and invented what was probably the first (and possibly the last) meat biscuit.
Borden went to England to promote the "wonderful meat biscuit from Texas" and to receive the Great Council Medal from Queen Victoria. Explorer Elisha Kane ordered a supply to be taken with him on an 1851 exploration of the Arctic, but other customers stayed away in droves.
On his way back from England on a ship, Borden saw several children die after drinking contaminated milk. After he filed for bankruptcy in Texas and returned to New York, he turned his attention to preserving milk. A visit to a Shaker community introduced him to a virtually airless tank that the Shakers called a "vacuum pan." The Shakers told Borden that fruit thus preserved stayed sweet for months.
Borden tried the same process with milk and added some sugar, as the Shakers did to their fruit, and found that he had figured out a way to preserve milk and keep it tasty for a long time but the wider world was underwhelmed. Even the patent office initially rejected Borden's application without comment, though he was finally awarded a patent in 1856. Even so, most people had their own dairy cows and could have milk any time they wanted it.
A wealthy benefactor named Jeremiah Wilbank, a wholesale grocer, banker and railroad financier, advanced Borden enough money to pay his debts and Borden took the opportunity to take his invention to the U.S Army, which he figured would be the biggest user of his condensed milk.
The Army was suitably impressed but didn't place an order until after the Civil War started. In 1861, the Army ordered 500 pounds of condensed milk and eventually placed an order for all the condensed milk he could produce. Borden returned to Texas a wealthy and respected man.
Borden believed his process worked because the water content was removed from the milk, but Louis Pasteur later showed us that it resisted spoiling because the heat generated in the process killed the bacteria.
The town of Borden in Colorado County, is named for Borden, who settled there when he returned to Texas. He opened the Borden Meat Preserving Company in 1872, and a slaughterhouse a year later. He also built a school for white children and a freedman's school for black children. He died in 1874, and is buried in New York. Gail, the county seat of Borden County, is also named in his honor.
