As a boy, Ole Evinrude lived near Cambridge, where his father hoped to keep him on the farm. When Ole built a sailboat like one he had seen in a picture book, his father destroyed it, but in a secret place in the woods the boy built another. On Lake Ripley, as his father watched from shore, Ole sailed the well-built craft with instinctive skill. Soon after, he left for the city to work as a mechanic, and in 1908 he invented an outboard motor and founded a new American industry.