SIX YEARS INTO the Great Depression, Americans were hungry for new ideas, and Cortez Peck was no exception.
The year was 1935, and enterprise was everywhere. The world’s first parking meter appeared in Oklahoma City, and canned beer made its debut in Virginia. Radar was patented, and a new substance called nylon was synthesized for the first time.
That December, from his home in the coastal, oil-rich town of Beaumont, Texas, Cortez applied for a patent on his own invention: a “mechanical fish luring device” made of wood that leaves a visible and fish-attracting blood trail upon retrieve.
