Old-Time Tractors
(Page 4 of 4)
November 2004
Bill Vossler
Early Parrett tractors were built by Independent Harvester Co. of Piano, 111., and sold well enough that Dent and Henry Parrett, and Henry Pollard, formed the Parrett Tractor Co. of Chicago in 1914. They manufactured three other Parrett models: a 10-20, a 12-25 Model E and H, and a 15-30 Model K, through 1918.
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The Parrett brothers also started Parrett Motors Corp. in 1920 to produce Parrett motor cultivators, 6-12 machines with a LeRoi four-cylinder engine with a 3 1/8- by 4 1/2-inch bore and stroke. PMC disappeared in 1921. Dent Parrett alone started Parrett Tractors Inc. of Benton Harbor, Mich., in 1935. That 2,600-pound Parrett tractor was sold for only one year. Bert B. Parrett organized the Parrett Tractor Co. in Jackson, Mich., but that's about as far as it got.
The phoenix is a mythical bird of great beauty that lived 500-600 years, burned itself up, then recreated itself from its ashes to live again, young and beautiful once more. Two companies of that name existed, Phoenix Manufacturing Co., Eau Claire, Wis., and Phoenix Tractor Co., Winona, Minn. The only Phoenix tractor (a 20-30 machine in 1912) was built at Winona, and soon disappeared, bought out by American Gas Engine Co. of Kansas City, which began selling the Phoenix as the Weber.
Other 'animal-named' tractors or companies - Iron Horse, Little Pet, Rex, Webfoot, Steel Hoof - would be too great a stretch to be included here. R.B. Gray, in The Agricultural Tractor 1855-1950, even says one tractor's lugs were modeled after the footprint of the ancient mastodon, 'an ancient quadruped,' but doesn't say which tractor.
End of an era
Today, few tractors are named after animals, probably because there is little need for manufacturers to prove that their machines can do the difficult and demanding work of tilling the soil, and probably because 900 tractor companies have dwindled down to a handful that have loyal followers, and successful lines whose names have nothing to do with animals.
- Bill Vossler is a freelance writer and author of several books on antique farm tractors and toys. Contact him at Box 372, 400 Caroline Lane, Rockville, MN 56569; (320) 253-5414; e-mail: bvossler@juno.com
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