George M. Chinn

George Morgan Chinn (January 15, 1902 – September 4, 1987) was an American weapons expert and soldier. He attended Centre College, and played on the 1921 Centre Praying Colonels football team, which won the national championship. Chinn then opened a diner in a cave, known as 'The Cave House', which also functioned as an underground gambling center. He served as the bodyguard of Happy Chandler while he was governor of Kentucky. Chinn was also Sergeant at Arms for the Kentucky Legislature. Later he was the production line inspector for several weapons' manufacturers, and eventually, a Marine. He designed the Mk 19 grenade launcher.^[1]

Eventually one of the United States's premier arms experts, Bill Bright said of him "He did for military weapons what Wozniak and Gates did for computers. He added the right pieces to make them reliable and usable. He was what was then called a garage (in his case, cave) inventor." Chin retired to become director of the Kentucky Historical Society from 1960 to 1973, and later Kentucky Military History Museum.^[2]