One-Year Reign of the Curtis: Curtis Baldwin’s Limited-Production Combine
Economic and personal misfortunes led to the brief production of the Curtis combine
April 2010
Tharran Gaines
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One of the most obvious features of Gilbert Vust's 1930 Curtis combine is its large Waukesha engine.
Tom Foss
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Agricultural history is laden with machines and ideas that were ahead of their time.
That’s particularly true of the harvesting equipment developed by Curtis, George and Ernest Baldwin, three brothers who grew up on a farm near Nickerson, Kan. Credited with developing the Baldwin Gleaner combine line – including the industry’s first self-propelled combine – the brothers also introduced the first standing corn combine.
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However, for all the success in the Baldwin brothers’ lives, there seems to have been an equal number of failures. One of those was the Baldwin standing grain harvester developed in 1911. The first machine of its type, it was designed to take threshing to the field by stripping grain heads from standing grain and delivering them to a cylinder for threshing. Unfortunately, the Baldwin Mfg. Co., which was established to build the machine, folded in 1918.
The Curtis combine, built in 1930 and named after the oldest Baldwin brother, was equally short-lived. In fact, the Curtis combine was built for only one year, making the machines extremely rare today. In the case of the Curtis combine, though, you might say there was a separation of direction between the brothers and the Gleaner brand in general.
Blood thicker than water
It all started in 1918, shortly after the failure of the standing grain combine and the Baldwin Mfg. Co. While Ernest and George Baldwin (along with Clarence Stevens) reorganized as Baldwin Brothers Co., Curtis went to work for Savage Harvester Co. While he was with the Savage company in Denver, he began working on his idea for a tractor-mounted (or self-propelled) combine. However, before his idea could be put on the market, the Savage enterprise failed and the assets were acquired by Advance-Rumely Thresher Co. Consequently, Curtis moved to LaPorte, Ind., where he worked for Rumely from 1922 to 1924.
In the meantime, George and Ernest, along with Stevens and George Michael, were in Wichita, Kan., designing the self-propelled Gleaner, which was built around the Fordson tractor. However, it has been long suspected that Curtis Baldwin actually sent his ideas for the Gleaner to his brothers and Stevens, who ultimately patented the design.
Shortly thereafter, Curtis Baldwin left Rumely and rejoined his brothers as vice president of the company. He began development of a new pull-type combine that was introduced in 1927. Unfortunately, misfortune frowned on the Baldwins once again. Due to a large financial loss in 1926, Stephen Hale, who had advanced a significant amount of financial capital to the company, demanded a reorganization. At that point Gleaner Mfg. Co. reorganized and changed its name to Gleaner Combine Harvester Corp.
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