Playing in the Dirt
Caterpillars converge at
annual threshermen's reunion
By Oscar H. Will III
Engines growled as cleated grousers gripped the ground in tractor demonstrations that literally moved the earth at the 2004 Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club's (ACMOC) National Summer Show last August. Yellow, gray and black track-laying machines crawled all over the Rough and Tumble Engineers Historical Association's (RTEHA) Kinzers, Pa., show grounds with demonstrations of grading, bulldozing, plowing and digging.
“We were glad to be hosted by Rough and Tumble during their annual Threshermen's Reunion,” explains Bill Rudicill, ACMOC president. “We move our summer show around because it is easier to do that than move the equipment around.” While it is true that Caterpillar made a number of smaller tractors from the beginning in 1925 to about 1960 (the year at which the organization draws its “vintage” line), even small crawlers can tip the scales at close to 10,000 pounds. “Weight like that is difficult, or at least expensive, to haul over great distances, so the show moves around,” Bill says. “And we get to see all kinds of other machines when we are hosted by another group.”
ACMOC (headquartered in Peoria, Ill., with about 3,000 members worldwide) originated in Oregon in the early 1990s with 10 committed enthusiasts. “Several of us would bring our Cats to the annual show in Brooks (Ore.),” Harry Cruchelow recalls, in explaining the club's origins. “In 1990, there were 10 of us, which was the right number to incorporate as a non-profit in Oregon.”
Cats to work the land
Today, Caterpillar equipment is most readily associated with large, diesel-powered, heavy-duty construction equipment – machines that build dams and interstate highways. In the beginning, however, the company's founders built machines that could work the Western landscape: massive combine harvesters first pulled by 26 horses, and later by Holt or Best steam-powered traction engines.
The steam engines were heavy, and it was difficult to achieve the traction required to pull the monstrous harvesters, and other super-sized tillage tools, while maintaining enough flotation to keep the machines from bogging down in soft loam. The solution was found in replacing cleated steel wheels with tracks. Eventually steam gave way to gasoline engines, and gasoline engines later gave way to diesel engines.
By the time Benjamin Holt and Daniel Best joined forces in 1908, both were supplying large farms with enough pulling power that road builders, loggers, freighters and others looking for a versatile prime mover took note. The combination of brute strength and flotation made the track-laying machines excellent for pulling long trains of lumber wagons, skidding logs or pulling road graders and other earth moving equipment.
In 1910, C.L. Best (Daniel's son) went into business building tractors. By 1912 his Best Tracklayers competed directly with Holt's machines in most markets. The Caterpillar Tractor Co. was formed when they joined forces in 1925.
Eventually, the crawlers were fitted with front blades evolving into self-contained dozers. Although Caterpillar equipment is still used on many large farms to pull multi-shank, deep-ripping subsoil plows, articulated four-wheel-drive machines, or new rubber-tracked agricultural tractors, have for the most part replaced the slower crawlers in the field.
Several interesting, agriculturally oriented Caterpillar tractors were at the 2004 summer show, including a 1956 Model D4 orchard crawler owned by Larry Maasdam of Clarion, Iowa. According to Larry, the D4 is just one of the many unusual high-crop and orchard-style agricultural tractors (of all brands) in his collection, but it is one of his favorite Cats. Orchard tractors were built low and streamlined to slip between rows of trees and beneath fruit-bearing branches. As useful as this style of tractor was for grove management, it was of little value to truck farmers who needed something with a lot of ground clearance. Caterpillar's solution to that problem was the high-clearance crawler.