1460 Colchester Drive East Port Orchard, Washington 98366
As the proud owners of two Lindeman-John Deere ‘BO’
crawlers, my wife, Norma, and I journeyed to Yakima, Washington to
meet with the inventor/producer of the well known unique orchard
tractor. We had done our homework before meeting Jesse Lindeman and
knew that he was 85 years young, an Air Service veteran of World
War I and co-founder/president of the Lindeman Power Equipment
Company (founded September 1922, Yakima, Washington). When the sale
of this Company to John Deere was finalized in January 1947, Jesse
Lindeman entered the J.D. work force as chief engineer and later
became involved in product development.
It didn’t take long for two tractor enthusiasts to find a
common ground; consequently the reminiscing flowed as fast as a
mountain stream! At this point Jesse Lindeman concurred in my
request to tape record the conversation. Here are some highlights
that may interest other tractor collectors:
The idea of a John Deere tracked machine got its impetus from
the Port-land, Oregon J. D. branch manager who needed a tractor to
compete with Caterpillar. The Portland manager, a cousin of Colonel
Wiman who was president of John Deere, said he could get one of the
new four-wheeled orchard tractors, the BO model. It then took Jesse
Lindeman nearly a year to complete the design, casting and
production of a prototype. The first tractor was field tested on a
local Yakima orchard… unfortunately this orchard had all level
ground. The absence of hilly terrain very common to many western
orchards allowed an initial design weakness to survive the field
test program. When the first production units got their real test
on hilly terrain, the problem surfaced in short order.
The first ten units produced used metal-to-metal clutch plates
which operated in oil. As you know, the Lindeman-J. D. crawler uses
steering levers which first release the clutch plates before
engaging the brake band. Everything worked fine until two crawlers
were sold to a McMinnville, Oregon orchardist who had all sidehill
fields. The near-constant use of the uphill brake to maintain a
contour line brought the major problem to the fore. Since the
clutch housing held only two quarts of oil, the plates got hot, dry
and shed steel particles. Ultimately the gap between the plates
filled and the clutch wouldn’t release. The Lindeman-J. D.
crawler almost met its Waterloo then and there as later reports
indicated that six of the ten crawlers were experiencing the same
problem!
The clutch dilemma was solved within two weeks by using
Chevrolet dry thermoid clutch plates rivetted on the existing steel
plates, revising the clutch housing and the release system. As soon
Jesse Lindeman finished a modification package, his younger
brother, Joe, would do the refit at the farm site. Fortunately, the
ten crawlers were only spread from Vancouver Island, B. C. to
Oregon so overnight trips got the job done in a hurry with minimal
loss of tractor time.
During the World War II years, a J. D. ‘BO’ tractor
production line was retained intact as a special concession to
supply farm tractor needs vital to fruit and food production. When
the Lindeman plant required more ‘BO’ units, a War
Production Board approval would be obtained for allocation of
critical war material and the John Deere production line would come
to life for a short time. The ‘BO’ chassis, costing about
$500 each, were shipped by rail from the Midwest to Yakima. The
retail price of the Lindeman-J. D. crawler was about $1450 through
the J. D. sales system.
Many tractor collectors are aware that the Lindeman
foundry/factory modified 27 GP tractors, many of which are still
around the Northwest in restored condition. Even more interesting,
however, is that three J. D. ‘D’ model tractors were also
equipped with the Lindeman tracked system. Mr. Lindeman remembers
that these machines were demonstrated on a cold, blustery winter
day in the Yakima Valley. Maybe the weather was a portend of things
to come; the ‘D’ production line was soon to be permanently
shut down. These three model ‘D’ crawlers were reportedly
shipped to the Dubuque plant when the entire John Deere operation
in Yakima was closed.
Another specialized Lindeman-J. D. crawler project involved 10
units equipped with small rubber-padded tracks. The metal plates
were manufactured at the Yakima plant and then sent to Portland,
Oregon for bonding a Chevron (‘ V ‘) cleat. These
rubber-tracked units were to fill a need for a small tracked
machine to lower into a ship’s hold for moving bulky cargo and
grain. Mr. Bob Lindeman, a nephew of Jesse Lindeman who also
currently resides in Yakima, has a set of these tracks to be used
in the family restoration project involving-what else-four
Lindeman-J. D. crawlers!
A color booklet Lindeman Power Equipment Company: A Review
and a Prospectus, printed about 1947/1948 was made available
to me by Mr. Barney Youngs of Port Townsend, Washington, a former
Lindeman engineer. This 32-page publication tells the story of the
Company from 1923 onward as it designed and produced specialized
machinery in addition to the well known J. D. crawler. Some of
these products are: mobile sprayers, extension disc harrows, land
rollers, hydraulic tool bars, beet loaders, potato harvesters,
2-way plow for the Ford-Ferguson tractor and the manufacture only
of the THYS Hop picker; these represent only a portion of this
Company’s illustrious product line-up.
To meet and chat with an inventive genius such as Jesse G.
Lindeman was an added bonus to our always pleasant visit to the
Yakima Valley.
