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Notable people · Inventor · Engineer · Manufacturer

Ermal Cleon 'Ernie' Fraze

Dayton tool-and-die maker whose integral-rivet pull tab, licensed through Alcoa and first sold on Iron City beer in 1962, made the self-opening beverage can standard.

Born September 16, 1913, on a farm near Muncie, Indiana
Died October 26, 1989, Kettering

Ermal Cleon 'Ernie' Fraze
Coastermom / CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

At a glance

Born
September 16, 1913, on a farm near Muncie, Indiana source
Died
October 26, 1989, Kettering (Montgomery County) source
Buried
Miami Valley Memory Gardens, Clear Creek Township (Mausoleum 1) (Warren County) source
Also known as
Ermal C. Fraze, Ernie Fraze, Ermal Fraze
Education
Kettering University, graduated while building business, per Wikipedia
Known as
Inventor, Engineer, Manufacturer
Organizations
Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing

Life story

Ermal Fraze was born near Muncie, Indiana, and moved to Dayton, where he first assembled novelties for Cracker Jack boxes and then worked in machine tooling in the 1940s.

In 1949, with his wife Martha's financial support, he founded Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing. At a 1959 picnic he had no can opener and had to open a can on a car bumper, which pushed him to design an easy-open end.

His first lever design had sharp edges, so he made the pull-tab. He received a patent in 1963 and sold the design to Alcoa. By 1965 about three-quarters of American brewers used it.

He died in Kettering in 1989 leaving an estate of $41 million. The Fraze Pavilion in Kettering carries his name.

Ohio ties

  • Dayton (1940s-1989)
    machine tool operator, then founder and owner of Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing Co. (now DRT Mfg. Co.) Montgomery County · source
  • Kettering (1957-1989)
    home from 1957; where he worked on the pull tab in his basement workshop; died there Montgomery County · source
  • Fraze Pavilion, Lincoln Park, Kettering (1991-present)
    outdoor amphitheater named in his honor Montgomery County · source
  • Miami Valley Memory Gardens, Clear Creek Township (1989)
    burial Warren County · source

Timeline

  1. 1913 Born on 16 September on a farm near Muncie, Indiana. source
  2. 1940s Worked in Dayton as a machine tool operator. source
  3. 1949 Founded the Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing Company with a small loan from his wife, Martha. source
  4. 1959 At a picnic, found that no one had brought a 'church key' can opener and cans had to be opened on a car bumper, which set him to work on a self-opening can. source
  5. 1961 Filed his first application for a can-end opening device on 19 December (Serial No. 160,487, later abandoned in favor of a continuation). source
  6. 1962 Alcoa, which held the licensing rights, persuaded Pittsburgh's Iron City Brewing to test the new pull-tab tops in March, in Virginia. source
  7. 1963 By June, 40 beer brands were using pull tabs, and Schlitz had launched a national 'pop top' advertising campaign. source
  8. 1965 Received U.S. Patent 3,191,564 on 29 June for forming a rivet from a can wall's own metal to hold a tab. source
  9. 1965 About 75 percent of U.S. breweries were using his pull tab. source
  10. 1966 Received U.S. Patent 3,255,917 on 14 June for a container opening device for metallic can ends. source
  11. 1977 Patented a push-in, fold-back 'Easy Open Ecology End' whose tab stays on the can. source
  12. 1981 Received U.S. Patent 4,286,728 on 1 September, with Omar L. Brown, for a 'Tab and ecology end' with a retained tab, assigned to Dayton Reliable Tool. source
  13. 1989 Died of a brain tumor in Kettering on 26 October, aged 76. source
  14. 1991 The 4,300-seat Fraze Pavilion opened in Kettering's Lincoln Park, named for him. source
  15. 1992 His family dismissed the managers who had bought Dayton Reliable Tool after an unauthorized attempt to sell the company, and took back control. source
  16. 2026 A William G. Pomeroy Foundation marker for Fraze, part of its Great American Rail-Trail program with the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, was placed at 2300 Acorn Drive on the Dayton-Kettering Connector trail. source

What Ermal is known for

  • Invented the pull-tab (easy-open) beverage can end, 1959
  • Pull-tab can end, patent 3,255,917 (1963)
  • Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing (1949)

Stories

A rivet made from the lid

The hard part of a self-opening can was attaching a tab to the lid without weakening a container that had to hold its contents under pressure. Fraze's 1965 patent describes forming the rivet out of the lid's own metal. A broad, gently sloped dimple is pressed into the wall, drawing in metal so that it barely thins, and then collapsed into a smaller, steep-sided, hat-shaped boss whose crown becomes a hollow rivet with a thickened end. The tab is set over it and the rivet is staked so its side wall flares over the tab's hole and locks it in place, with no separate fastener and no break in the wall. The patent says the aim was a joint strong enough for a person to tear the strip out by hand and suited to mass production.

Source

Iron City goes first

Fraze sold the rights to his invention to Alcoa, and Alcoa persuaded Iron City Brewing of Pittsburgh to try the new tops. Iron City tested them in March 1962 in Virginia, where the first beer can had also been tested in 1935. The test was a success, Iron City's sales rose 233 percent within a year, and within a year Schlitz followed with a national advertising campaign for its 'pop top'. By June 1963, 40 brands used the tabs, and by 1965 about three-quarters of U.S. breweries did. The early tabs cut fingers and lips, so makers added 'Lift Tab, Pull Open' instructions, rounded the tab edges and pressed 'smile beads' beside the opening.

Source

From litter to the ecology end

Fraze trained in mechanical engineering at the General Motors Institute in Flint, Michigan, before starting Dayton Reliable Tool in 1949, and over his career he earned 127 U.S. and international patents. The first pull tabs came off in the drinker's hand, and in 1977 he patented a push-in, fold-back 'Easy Open Ecology End' that opened the can without a loose, sharp tab, cutting both litter and injuries. By 1988 more than 150 billion cans had been made with that design. His estate was valued at more than $40 million, and his family gave to Kettering, where the Fraze Pavilion bears the family name. His papers are held by Wright State University Libraries' Special Collections and Archives.

Source

Inventions and firsts

All Ohio inventions and firsts

Honors and things named for them

  • Fraze Pavilion, Kettering, Ohio (4,300-seat amphitheater)

Named for Ermal Cleon 'Ernie' Fraze

Family

  • wife: Martha Fraze

Sites to know

Homes, graves, markers, museums and monuments; the numbered ones are on the map.

123
  • 1 William G. Pomeroy Foundation marker 'Ermal C. Fraze', Dayton-Kettering Connector trail
    2300 Acorn Drive, Dayton Montgomery County · source
  • 2 Fraze Pavilion (named for him)
    695 Lincoln Park Boulevard, Kettering Montgomery County · source
  • Pop-Top Can invention station, Dayton Inventors River Walk, RiverScape MetroPark
    Monument Avenue and Main Street, Dayton Montgomery County · source
  • 3 Fraze grave, Miami Valley Memory Gardens (Mausoleum 1)
    Clear Creek Township Warren County · source

Places in Ohio to see

Ohio places

Where Ermal Cleon 'Ernie' Fraze was born, lived, worked and is remembered, with the ZIP code, town and county pages for each.

Myths and corrections

Things often said about Ermal Cleon 'Ernie' Fraze, and what the record shows.

Often said Fraze's pull-tab patent is U.S. Patent 3,349,949, granted to him on 31 October 1967.

The record Patent 3,349,949 (filed 6 July 1965, issued 31 October 1967) is for a 'ring-shaped tab for tear strips of containers' and names Omar L. Brown and Don B. Peters as inventors, not Fraze. Fraze's own key patents are 3,191,564 (1965) for the integral-rivet joint and 3,255,917 (1966) for the opening device. source

Often said Fraze patented the pull tab in 1963.

The record He applied in 1961 and 1963, but the patents were issued later: 3,191,564 on 29 June 1965 (filed 15 May 1963) and 3,255,917 on 14 June 1966 (filed 9 September 1963, a continuation of a December 1961 application). Wright State's finding aid gives 1967. The 1963 date on markers and in Wikipedia is a filing year, not a grant. source

Often said Fraze invented the stay-on tab used on cans today.

The record Credit is shared. Wikipedia's history of the beverage can credits Daniel F. Cudzik of Reynolds Metals with the non-removable 'Sta-Tab', which first appeared on Falls City beer in 1975, and notes that Anthony Bajada had patented a lid that kept the tab attached in 1958. Cudzik's patent, 3,967,752, was issued to Reynolds in 1976. Fraze's company patented its own retained-tab 'ecology end' designs (1977, per Wright State, and 4,286,728 in 1981). source

Documents

Primary records: patents, letters, court and government files, nominations and old county histories, each at the archive that holds it.

Pictures

Free to use with the credit shown. Select a picture for the original and its license.

  • The fountains and administrative building for Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, Ohio
    The fountains and administrative building for Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, Ohio
    Coastermom / CC BY 3.0

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. High: the main facts were confirmed in sources we opened.

Every link goes to the original source. Profile researched 2026-10-15.

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