Victor Leaton Ochoa
Victor Leaton Ochoa was a Mexican American revolutionary, journalist, union leader, miner and inventor. He is best known for his invention of the Ochoaplane, an early version of the pen and pencil clip an adjustable wrench and a windmill. He also participated in a fight to overthrow Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz in the early 1890s.
Biography
Ochoa was born in Ojinaga, Chihuahua, Mexico in 1850 and was of Spanish and Scottish descent. His exact date of birth is unknown. His father was Juan Ochoa, who was a customs collector in Presidio, Texas and owned a large lumber mill in Fort Davis, Texas. Ochoa has a brother named Esteban. His grandfather was Benjamin Leaton, who was a captain in the Federal army and settled on the family property of the Ochoas. He also remodelled an old Spanish mission into a fort, until the government took it over and named it Fort Leaton. Victor Ochoa later moved to Texas, then New York and New Jersey, eventually becoming a U.S. citizen in 1889.Ochoa was also a journalist who founded El Hispano American and El Correo del Bravo. He was opposed to the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, who had been in rule of Mexico from 1876 to 1911. Ochoa became involved in a fight by Mexican rebels to overthrow Porfirio Diaz in the 1890s. After this incident, Diaz put a bounty on Ochoa`s head for $50,000, "dead or alive". For his illegal actions, a federal warrant was issued for his arrest and was sought by the U.S. Marshall Service and Believed to be the one who organised the fight. In 1894, Ochoa was arrested for his revolutionary activities, where he was supplying and hiring Mexican dissidents in El Paso, Texas, which violated the United States's neutrality laws. In the fall of 1894, Pecos County Sheriff A. J. Royal and Texas Ranger James W. Fulgham arrested Victor Ochoa as they were rounding up suspected horse thieves. He was put in the Pecos County jail and promptly escaped. Eventually, he was found and returned to El Paso. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison at Kings County Penitentiary in Brooklyn and had his U.S. citizenship stripped, but had it restored by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. As committed to his revolutionary ideals, he was also committed to inventing. He worked with Watson E. Coleman, who was a solicitor for patents, who helped him file for and obtain patents in other countries such as Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland and Spain. He is recognised by the Smithsonian Institution for his work.