Whitcomb L. Judson Whitcomb L. Judson Whitcomb L. Judson (March 7, 1846 – December 7, 1909) was an American machine salesman, mechanical engineer and inventor. Judson invented the zipper in the 1890s. Judson was born in Chicago, Illinois. According to the 1860 census, he lived in Illinois, and served in the Union army. He enlisted in 1861 at Oneida, Illinois in the Forty-Second Illinois Cavalry. Judson attended Knox College in his hometown Galesburg, Illinois. He was found in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1886. In 1886 and 1887 the Minneapolis city directory identifies Judson as a "traveling agent" — a traveling salesman working probably for
Judson Record House locally important pulp and papermaking businesses. The house was designed by the prominent Maine architecture firm of George M. Coombs and Eugene Gibbs. From 1917 until the 1970s, it was used as housing for managers of the local papermaking businesses, and then as office space. Since 2007 it has housed Maine's Paper and Heritage Museum. Judson Record House The Judson Record House is a historic house at 22 Church Street in Livermore Falls, Maine. Built in 1907 for a prominent local industrialist, it is a fine local example of Colonial Revival architecture. It presently houses Maine's Paper and Heritage Museum.