By far the saddest tale of all must be the demise of Liberty Walkup. Following the World Fair he saw others take his intended market with a design that he felt to be inferior to his own - though as we have seen it lives on (in spirit at least) in the form of the Paasche Turbo model.

As his business declined he moved premises a number of times and even started to patent alternative versions of Burdick's design himself. His nephew recalled him surrounded by pipes when he visited a small shop that doubled as his factory.

From newpaper forecasts of a prosperous future in 1891 and headlines such as "Millions In It" in May 1885 the final passing of Liberty Walkup was recorded on October 20th 1922 as "Death Comes to Liberty Walkup Aged Inventor". He had died at 8:40pm the previous night aged 78 years. His company lived on, in name at least, until 1927 when it officially folded due to non payment of taxes. Liberty had championed prohibition and even ran for State Senator at that time.

This entire site is a tribute to him.