Beard was a farmer near Birmingham, Alabama for some five years, but recalled visiting Montgomery in 1872 with 50 bushels of apples drawn by oxen. He began pondering the mechanics of his subsequent plow invention. Beard's idea flourished and, in 1881, he patented one of his plows and sold it, in 1884, for $4,000.

On December 15, 1887, Beard invented another plow and sold it for $5,200. With these profits, he went into the real-estate business and accumulated a profit of about $30,000.

Andrew invented a rotary steam engine, patented on July 5,1892. He claimed that his steam engine was cheaper to build and operate than conventional steam engines and it would not explode.

While he worked on his rotary steam engine, he experimented with the automatic car coupler idea. In the early days of American railroading, coupling was done manually.

While working in the railroad yards, Beard developed an idea for advice which would automatically hook railroad cars together. Car coupling, and extremely dangerous procedure, required a railroad worker to brace himself between cars and drop a metal pin into place at the exact moment the cars came together.

The patent for his invention was issued on November 23, 1897. Andrew Beard's invention, which was improved in 1899, is a forerunner of today's automatic coupler.