A dump truck is a vehicle built to haul loose construction materials such as dirt, gravel and demolition waste, using an open-box bed hinged at the rear and raised at the front by hydraulic rams so its load slides out at the delivery site. The type began in late nineteenth-century Western Europe; Thornycroft built an early steam-powered version in 1896, and motorized dump trucks appeared in North America around 1910 from makers including Fruehauf Trailer Corporation and Galion Buggy Co., with hydraulic dump beds introduced shortly afterward by the Wood Hoist Company. In Canada, Robert T. Mawhinney is credited with building the first known Canadian dump truck in Saint John, New Brunswick, in 1920 by fitting a dump box to a flatbed truck. Dump trucks became essential to construction and mining and saw a surge of military demand during the First World War; today they operate almost universally on hydraulic systems and come in many specialized configurations for different construction and material-hauling jobs.
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