Richard Bowie Spikes (Oct. 2, 1878 – Jan. 22, 1963) developed or improved several inventions: a beer tap, a modification of an automatic gear shift mechanism for motor vehicles and a safety braking system for trucks and buses. Notably, his beer tap patent was purchased by the Milwaukee Brewing Company, and variations of his design are still in use today. However, many of his other inventions were not widely adopted during his lifetime.

Although a capable musician, Spikes learned to cut hair in his father's barbershop, and then became a public school teacher in Beaumont, Texas. On Oct. 8, 1900, he married Lula Belle Charlton (1880–1970), daughter of Charles Napoleon Charlton, an ex-slave who cofounded the first public schools for African Americans in Beaumont.

Soon after his marriage, Spikes moved west to Arizona, where he operated a barber shop and later a saloon. He became dissatisfied with how draft beer was dispensed from a keg, and developed variations on the pressure-dispense beer tap. The patent was purchased by the Milwaukee Brewing Company and variations of the invention are still in use.

Moving to San Francisco, Spikes eventually received a patent pertaining to automobile directional signals, which he installed on a Pierce-Arrow car in 1913. However, contrary to many sources, Spikes was not the original inventor of this pivotal device, as Percy Douglas-Hamilton was awarded a patent in 1906, six years before Spikes developed his version of the device. While he was working on his brake testing machine a few years later, the Oakland, California, Police Department was interested enough to give it a tryout.

Spikes continued working as a barber until his eyesight began to fade due to glaucoma, which affected other members of his family, including his brother John, who received a patent for a "writing aid for the blind" — a paper holder, essentially a pad with a clip affixed to it in order to secure sheets of writing paper.

In December 1932, Spikes received a patent for modifications to the automatic gear shift device based on automatic transmission for automobiles and other motor vehicles invented in 1904 by the Sturtevant brothers of Boston. He died at the age of 85.

INVENTIONS

* Beer tapper (1908)

* Billiard cue rack (1910)

* Continuous contact trolley pole (1919)

* Brake testing machine (1923)

* Pantograph (1923)

* Combination milk bottle opener and cover (1926)

* Methods and apparatus of obtaining average samples and temperature of tank liquids (1932)

* Modifications to the automatic gear shift (1932)

* Transmission and shifting thereof (1933)

* Horizontally swinging barber's chair (1950)

* Automatic Safety Brake System (1962)

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