Route 4, Huntington, Indiana 46750
The question comes up as to what happened to all the companies
that are listed as to having made, or having advertised for sale
these Five Hundred different tractors. These fall under two heads;
1. Company failure, 2. Mergers. The first takes care of most of
them. Company failures caused by poor engineering and designing,
lack of financing, lack of sales due to lack of sales organization,
etc, etc. Several other things came up that cannot be blamed on the
companies, nor was it their fault. During World War I the
government had clamped down on steel for things other than war use.
In several instances, the factory might have been taken over for
making things for the army. The Hart Parr plant was one of those.
After the war Hart Parr kept going good until the merger.
After the war, the production of a lot of the larger tractors
was discontinued, especially from 1917 to 1922. This was not so
much due to the failure of the companies, as it was to getting the
demand for them pretty well filled up, and the tendency for a
better market for smaller three bottom tractors of lighter design.
From 1917 to 1920 production stopped on Hart Parr 30-50, Big Four,
Case 30-60, Gas Pull, Mogul 30-60, and Titan 30-60, plus Pioneer.
As things picked up after 1922, these companies devoted their
efforts to smaller tractors.
Smaller tractors quitting were Bull, Samson, Parrett, Bates,
Gray, Bates Steel Mule, Moline Universal, Waterloo Boy, Avery 5-10,
18-36, Uncle Sam, Coleman, Int. Harv. quit making Titan 10-20,
Mogul 10-20, Int. 8-16, and Int. 15-30.
1919 – A 25-50 Avery tractor 5-bottom Avery self-lift plow. Note
furrow guide on tractor owned by Irvin W. Maxwell of Champaign,
Illinois. They are plowing oats stubble for wheat.
While the period from 1910 to 1920 was the Romantic period of
our early tractor life, it remains for the period of 1920 to 1930
to be that of the most productive and satisfying. We also had a
period of mergers which made big ones out of the smaller ones.
Now we come to a period of mergers and consolidations. The
Massey Co. and the Harris Co. had gotten together in 1891. Both had
started about 1847, and were both engaged in the Mfg. of harvesting
equipment, binders, reapers, rakes, etc. The Massey Harris Co.
became larger with Mfg. plants and offices in Racine, Wis. and
Toronto, Ont. Can. In 1928 Massey Harris took over the J.I. Case
Plow Works of Racine, Wis., who since 1912 had been making the
Wallis tractor. Wallis of the J.I. Case plow works was a son-in-law
of J.I. Case. The J.I. Case Plow Co. is not the same as The
J.I.Case Threshing Mach. Co. In this deal with Massey Harris, the
J.I. Case Threshing Mach. Co. received the exclusive rights to the
trade name of ‘Case’ and ‘J.I. Case Co.’ which they
still use. Massey Harris later became Massey Ferguson which it
still is today.
In 1928 the J.I. Case Threshing Mach. Co. bought out the
Emmerson Brantingham Corp. of Rockford. III. Thus passed into
history one of the oldest agricultural implement companies in the
U.S. Started in 1852 by John Manny who was making reapers; later
taking in Ralph Emmerson and Wait Talcott to form the Emmerson
Brantingham Corp. In 1912 E-B bought Gas Traction of Mpls., makers
of The Big Four tractors. Gas Traction started in 1908 by
purchasing The Transit Threshing Mach. Co. who had started in 1906.
In 1912 E-B also bought Geiser of Waynesboro, Pa., Reeves of
Columbus, Ind., Rockford Engine Works of Rockford III. Later, they
bought the Osborn line of Harvesting and Haying equipment from The
Int. Harvester Co. They were incorporated for $50,000,000 and were
really big.
In 1929 another major merger came about with the joining of the
Oliver Plow Works of South Bend, Ind. formed in 1855; The Hart Parr
Tr. Co. of Charles City, Iowa which was founded in 1897; The
Nichols and Shepard Co. of Battle Creek, Mich, founded in 1897;
also the American Seeding Mach. Co. of Cleveland Springfield, Ohio
founded in 1848. In 1945 they got the Clevefand Tractor Co. of
Cleveland, Ohio, the makers of the Cletrac crawler tractor.
In 1929 three of the old companies got together and formed the
present Minneapolis Moline line. They were the Moline Plow Co.
founded in 1914 and made the Moline Universal tractors from 1914 to
about 1922, or some say 1924. The Minneapolis Steel & Mach.
Co., founded in 1902 and the makers of the Twin City line of
tractors. This company also built tractors under contract for
several smaller firms, notably The Bull Tractor Co. It might be
interesting to know that The International Harv. Co. bought the
Moline Plow Co. plant, and they now make their Farmall line of
tractors there. The third company was The Minneapolis Threshing
Mach. Co. founded in 1887, and who first made a popular line of
steam engines and threshing Machines and later the Minneapolis line
of tractors of which the 22 – 44 and 35 -70 were popular.
Minneapolis Moline is now owned by The White Motor Co.
In 1928 and 1929 a group of thirty companies organized the
United Tractor & Equip. Co. of Chicago, 111., of which Allis
Chalmers of Milwaukee, Wis. was one. They had total assets of over
$50,000,000. They started building the United Tractor which Allis
Chalmers took a contract to sell under the United name. This later
was renamed the Allis Chalmers and became model U.
In 1936 The Duplex Mach. Co. of Battle Creek Mich. made the
first COOP which was made for distribution through the Farmers
Union Central Exchange Inc. St. Paul. Minn., and later the Farm
Bureau Coop Assoc. Originally it was a three plow standard four
wheel tractor with a 6 cyl. Chrysler engine. This was sold to
National Farm Mach. Cooperative of Bellevue, Ohio, who made the E 3
and E 4. COOP Now owned by White Motor Co.
The Nebraska tests that started in 1920 really got rolling. The
first tractor tested was a Waterloo Boy. A total of about seventy
were tested that first year, 1920. This policing of the tractor
companies had been needed for some time, and as the fly-by-night
companies left the field, the tests tended to build up the
confidence of both the farmers and the industry as a whole. Many
tractors were made and sold before these tests and many of them
would never have passed these tests.
This 55 bottom plow was demonstrated at Purdue University in
1911. It was pulled by three 45 HP Mogul International Tractors.
They also built a 50 bottom plow pulled by three 30-60 HP Oil Pull
Tractors. [They are pictured in the Jan-Feb. G.E.M. and the details
can be read in March-April G.E.M. on page 26 by John Davidson]. It
could possibly be they were demonstrated the same day. Mr. Davidson
says he has no record of this one. If anyone should have a record
of the 55 bottom plow, let’s have it in the G.E.M. or
I.M.A.
To get an idea as to the growth of the tractor industry, I have
taken the following figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture
census taken from the nine best agricultural states of tractors on
farms, not tractors manufactured -1920 – 198,468 tractors; 1925
-367,888 tractors; 1930 – 664,648 tractors.
