Excerpt From Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors by C.H. Wendel Richard Sylvester moved to Lindsay, Ontario about 1876 and set up an implement factory. Sylvester had been building implements at […]
Excerpt from Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors by C.H. Wendel Two brothers, Douglass and Maurice Steiger wanted a large, powerful tractor for their farm operations. Unable to find what they […]
Excerpt from Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors by C.H. Wendel In December, 1899, Joseph M. Denning moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa and opened a plant known as Denning Wire […]
Nestled in the heartland of America the name Oliver Tractor Company stands as a testament to the relentless spirit of innovation that has shaped the agricultural landscape for over a […]
Benjamin Warder began building reapers at Spring field, Ohio in 1850. Prior to that time, Warder had established a sawmill, grist mill, and woolen mill. A factory designed to make […]
William C. Durant, chairman and majority stockholder of General Motors Corporation was determined to meet the Fordson challenge by getting into the tractor business. If nothing else, it was a […]
Few boys of fourteen years are forced to assume a man’s tasks, but thus it was with John Lauson. His father and four other brothers had come from Germany and […]
Perhaps to its own harm, Allis-Chalmers has at times represented the ultimate in diversification. Even in the early days when Decker & Seville was scarcely established, the firm built stone […]
John Deere was born at Rutland, Vermont on February 7, 1804. By 1823 he had become a blacksmith, and spent the next few years working in various shops. The […]
Robert H. and Cyrus M. Avery formed the Avery Planter company at Galesburg, Illinois in 1874. Robert Avery had developed some ideas about corn planters during his imprisonment at Andersonville, […]
Meinrad Rumely was born in Germany in 1823, and came to the United States in 1848. Two brothers, Jacob and John, had emigrated earlier. For a time he worked with […]
The history of Ann Arbor Machine Company goes back to 1882. The company began in a small way building hay presses and other machines. Their heavy duty Columbia hay press […]
American Seeding Machine Company was organized in 1903. This merger brought together several competing companies. Ostensibly, the plan was to achieve the benefits of mass production by eliminating a great […]
John Nichols opened a blacksmith shop at Battle Creek, Michigan in 1848. Little is known of Nichols’ early life, nor does anything but the most scant history of the early […]
As with the Cockshutt line, the Minneapolis- Moline line had no connection with Oliver Corporation in the strictest sense. The commonality lies in the acquisition of Minneapolis-Moline, Cockshutt, and Oliver […]
In 1872, Charles Walter Hart was born at Charles City, Iowa. The Hart family had arrived on the Massachusetts shore in 1632…this particular scion of the family came to Iowa […]
Before Cyrus Hall McCormick’s death in 1884, he and William Deering spoke of amalgamation, but nothing came of these conversations. Records of the following years indicate that a number of […]
Deering Harvester Company formed another major root of International Harvester Company. When William Deering became involved in the harvester business, Cyrus Hall McCormick had been at it for about forty […]
The year 1981 marks the 150th Anniversary of the McCormick reaper. From this crude machine of 1831 the McCormick empire was built, and through it International Harvester Company gained its […]
Although J. I. Case was actively engaged in the construction machinery business, particularly in the 1912-1920 period, it is curious indeed that they made no overt move into the crawler […]
Of all the companies acquired by J. I. Case, the Rock Island Plow Company remains as one of the most significant. Curiously though, Case closed out the Rock Island tractor […]
In 1852 John H. Manny Company was organized to build the Manny reaper. Two years later, in 1854, Manny built nearly 1,000 reapers. His small factory at Waddam’s Grove, Stephenson […]
Everything in life has its challenges. The history of mechanized agriculture is certainly no exception. Although the history of J. I. Case Company is seen here through the product lines, […]
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