EACH time he sees a glass louvre window, Proserpine sawmill owner Eddie Gray is reminded of his grandfather's ingenuity.

Cabinetmaker and sawmill owner Owen Herbert Gray invented the design in the 1930s.

Eddie said his grandfather made the louvres for his wife, Alice Edna, who couldn't have her casement windows open when sawmill trucks passed by, through a narrow laneway.

"Grandfather said 'I'll fix that, I'll make you a set of movable louvres'," he said.

His grandmother replied she didn't want louvres as they would make the room dark.

"'No,' he said, 'I'll make them out of glass'," Eddie said.

The Everlite louvre was patented in 1932 and business was under way.

The glass sheets were made in Townsville, sent to Proserpine for cutting and the louvres were distributed from an office in South Brisbane.

"This was during the Depression, when money was scarce, and the only people who could afford them were doctors and solicitors, big buildings, hotels and hospitals," Eddie said.

Within a couple of years Owen Gray's salesman, Norman Appleton, made an alteration to the design and had it patented.

"It went from a two-grip (design), to one lever... Appleton's was slightly better," Eddie said.

A legal battle over the patent ensued, in which Owen Gray defended himself ("he couldn't afford a solicitor," Eddie said) and lost.

Owen stopped producing the Everlite glass louvres, and Norman's business, Naco, went on to have international success.

Eddie was too young to remember the case, and his grandfather died in 1939.

"My father would not talk about that period, but my mother knew quite a lot and she told me bits and pieces," he said.

Without the Everlite louvre, Eddie Gray may never have been born - his mother met her husband working at the company's Brisbane office.

"They got married before the business closed, and then they travelled up (to Proserpine)," Eddie said.

Eddie has lived in Proserpine most of his life.

He started working at his father's business, Grays Timber, in 1953, and is now a part-owner with his sister.