![]() Holland, one or both, had aroused interest in submarines among members of Congress. Let me emphasize that this statement is not necessarily critical. What I did not know was that there was the smell of business in the building of submarines. It seemed to me that this suggestion was both practical and a promise of economy. ![]() I had not submitted a bid for the construction of a boat, for the very good reason that I had neither money nor backers, but I had asked that, if my plans were accepted, I be given a position in the capacity of constructor and my boat be built in one of the Navy’s yards. It seemed to me, too, in my almost infantile ignorance of how things are done in politics that my proposition would appeal to the chiefs in the Navy Department. I could name several points of superiority. Every inventor presumably feels that way. In his autobiography, he stated that “I was confident that my plans were superior to those of the Holland and Baker submarine. However, Lake truly believed he would prevail. He was the youngest of the inventors and was not considered a threat to the other inventors. At the young age of twenty-seven, he set off to Washington D.C. In 1892, Simon Lake’s wife found the advertisement about the bids for a submarine from the U.S. Simon Lake’s Submarine during production – notice the wheels! When the submarine contest came around, Lake believed that a submarine would be more profitable for commercial use than for the Navy. A childhood fancy had developed into exhausting research on how to overcome the issues with submerging a vessel. By this time, the true difficulties of submarine development were not lost on Simon Lake. Vogel was supportive of Lake’s dream of building a submarine. While planning and designing his submarine at night, Lake grew up, worked with his father, and eventually moved to Baltimore where he married Margret Vogel. But with the impudence which is a part of the equipment of the totally inexperienced I found fault with some features of Jules Verne’s Nautilus and set about improving on them.” So began Lake’s passion for submarines and it was during his childhood that he planned his Argonaut submarine. ![]() I began to dream of making voyages under the waters, and of the vast stores of treasure and the superb adventures that awaited subaqueous pioneers. This generation may have forgotten that Verne was a great scientist as well as the writer of the most romantic fiction of his day. When I was not more than ten or eleven years old I read his Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea and my young imagination was fired. Lake states “Jules Verne was in a sense the director-general of my life. His love of submarines was inspired by Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Simon Lake was born in Pleasantville, New Jersey in 1866, the grandson of Simon Lake who helped founded Atlantic City and Ocean City, New Jersey. But Lakes’ contributions to submarine development are still considered a success. What would have happened had Lake been able to complete the competition? History will never know. ![]() ![]() Without the financial backing that Holland and Baker had, Simon Lake could not cover the required bond to be considered in the competition. Despite his future success in submarine development, Lake didn’t make it very far in the competition. Simon Lake is not remembered for the great submarine contest of 1893. ![]()
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