Mike Timmons Jr. – better known as “Crawler Mike” – does business under the name of Tempered Tracks Rustic Rails. Mike wants antique tractor enthusiasts to know this year’s American Thresherman Assoc. Steam, Gas & Threshing Show is featuring “130 Years of the Tracked Tractor. The 60th annual show takes place at the American Thresherman Park in Pinckneyville, Ill., August 14-18. “I’d like to have close to 200 tractors; right now I have 50 to 100 committed,” Mike said earlier this spring. “Hopefully we will have one of each kind of variation, including the oddballs.” When conditions like soft or sandy soils, rough terrain, and steep grades made it impossible for horses or basic farm machinery to work, the crawler and track equipment have made the difference. They have a “floating” moving capability that other equipment lacks. “I think the first crawler made was a Russian steam crawler in the 1870s,” Mike said. A little digging showed that in 1837 Dmitry Zagryazhsky was a Russian army captain who drew a caterpillar-type drive. He applied for a patent using the words “carriage with a flat chain mechanical caterpillar.” The patent was granted, but no one was interested in building it, so the patent was annulled in 1839. In 1877 the Russian inventor Fydor Blinov introduced on the first tracked vehicle and patented it in 1879. He is credited with building the first steam-powered continuous track tractor for farm use, and this self-propelled crawler was successfully tested and displayed at a farm exhibition in 1896. The better-known track history is that of Benjamin Holt, who is often credited with developing the first commercially successful crawler-type tractor. The first he developed was in Stockton, Calif., and is not a lot different than those operating today. Holt’s first tractor was built in 1890 and called Betsy. She was 24 feet long and weighed in at 12 tons. Holt Manufacturing Co. moved the crawler industry from steam to the first successful gasoline-powered crawler in 1908. By the early 20th century, Holt was the leading manufacturer of combine harvesters in the United States, and the leading California-based manufacturer of steam traction engines. Holt history is tied to Best history – Clarence Leo Best, also known as C.L., was the founder of the C.L. Best Gas Traction Co. in 1910. He was a tractor pioneer who began his career in 1891, at the age of 13 when he started working for his father, Daniel. Best and Holt merged their companies in 1925 to form the Caterpillar Tractor Co. Some of their most famous accomplishments are the use of their track-type tractors to help complete construction of the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. Another early company that entered the crawler equipment foray was the Monarch Tractor Co. Founded in Watertown, Wis., in 1913, the company was incorporated in 1916 as Monarch Tractors, Inc. Monarch successfully built tractors that were shipped to France and used in World War I. Later, the company was purchased by the Foster Machine Co. of Elkhart, Ind., and eventually acquired by the Allis Chalmers Co. The Cleveland Tractor Co. was also an early track tractor outfit. This was a family business belonging to Thomas H. White and his sons: Thomas II, Rollin, Windsor, Clarence, and Walter. Thomas is also credited with starting the White Sewing Machine Co. in Cleveland in 1866. Besides sewing machines, the company also manufactured roller skates and bicycles before getting into track crawlers around 1914, when Rollin developed one at an older brother’s pineapple plantation in Hawaii. The Cleveland name changed eventually to Cletrac, and it was the first company to offer a diesel version of the track tractor. Cletrac was eventually bought out by the Oliver Co. in the 1940s, but came under a White name again when, in 1962, White Motor Corp. purchased Oliver. Over the years, many companies joined in the tracked tractors, from International Harvester to John Deere – and Crawler Mike hopes to see each of them in August. Oliver Hart Parr will be the co-feature at this show. Each year the show hosts more than 1,000 tractors, including steam. There is a tractor pull, swap meet, and plowing; for more information, contact Mike at 618-401-5516 or crawlermike@aol.com Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication. Learn more of Cindy’s finds and travel in her blog, “Traveling Adventures of a Farm Girl,” at http://travelingadventuresofafarmgirl.com |
