In its heyday, the Patent Office was one of the busiest office buildings in Washington. Every day, hundreds of inventors and attorneys from across the country came to search the patent records. The model hall predated the Smithsonian Institution by a decade and was a must-visit attraction for tourists.

The building was commissioned after Congress passed the landmark Patent Act of 1836 to collect “a general repository of all the inventions and improvements in machinery and manufactures, of which our country can claim the honor.” In it’s first year the Patent Office received 765 patent applications, but within 50 years the number of annual applications had grown to 41,048. The rate continued to increase year after year after that.

From 1836 to 1880 miniature models were a required addendum for all patent applications (The Washington Post explained this as a way to “get rid of the perpetual motion cranks”). The Patent Office collection brought in hundreds of thousands of these miniature wonders, creating a one of a kind industrial museum. Visitors could examine Eli Whitney’s mechanical cotton gin, Samuel Morse’s telegraph, George Westinghouse’s air brake, Joseph Glidden’s barbed wire, as well as 1,093 Thomas Edison inventions.