Don’t Try This At Home: Taking Apart and Reassembling a Typewriter, Blindfolded

And that means you, Ted, Joe, Bill and Richard ... (and especially you, Terry)

Fred Russell Scroggins, a typewriter mechanic in Harlingen, a city in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, made it into Ripley’s Believe It Or Not as well as Popular Science magazine with his skill in taking apart a typewriter in 11 minutes, 15 seconds, then reassembling it in 56 minutes, 30 seconds – all the time while blindfolded. According to Ripley’s, he repeated this incredible feat three times in five hours.

Nimble-fingered Fred first featured in the November 1922 issue of Popular Science, when he was working as a typewriter mechanic in San Antonio. In 1927 Fred set up shop in Harlingen and in late 1932 a local, George McGinnis, saw the Popular Science photo and declared he didn’t believe what Fred was said to have done was possible. After seeing Fred perform this mindblowing task, George contacted Ripley’s, and Fred appeared in an April 1933 edition of the King Features Syndicate illustration.

“Twas nothing,” Fred modestly told McGinnis when he proved his capabilities, and they had a small side bet that McGinnis could get Fred into Ripley’s. Fred lost the wager but got to be seen my millions of readers.

Grace Phelan with her prize.

Fred Russell Scroggins was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, on September 12, 1894, the son of a carpenter. He began his working life as a bookkeeper in San Antonio but by 1917 had found his true vocation, in the typewriter business as a travelling salesman and repairer for Underwood. In Harlingen Fred set up his own typewriter business and in 1942, as the Underwood agent, sponsored world amateur speed typing champion Grace Phelan. His extraordinary salesmanship had been recognised by Underwood in 1941, when in the summer months he sold typewriters between 148 and 207 per cent above quota. Fred died in Harlingen on January 8, 1965, aged 70