Ole Evinrude was born in Norway on April 19, 1877; five years later, his family emigrated to the United States and settled near Cambridge, Wisconsin. Interested in mechanics from an early age, Evinrude became an apprentice machinist at age 16 and eventually a master patternmaker as well.

Along with a growing number of people at the turn of the century, Ole Evinrude was fascinated by the potential of the newly developed internal combustion engine, and at the turn of the century, he set up a firm to build small engines.

While Evinrude concentrated on the mechanical and engineering aspects of the new firm, he entrusted the bookkeeping and business end of the firm to his assistant, Bessie Cary. The story surrounding Evinrude's invention of the outboard boat engine revolves around a picnic that Cary and Evinrude enjoyed on an island in Lake Michigan two and one-half miles from shore. Cary expressed...