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"The engine that emerged used wheels seven feet in diameter, and six feet wide," Jerry said. "These were mounted in groups of three on each side of the engine. Although the machine was cumbersome in the extreme, it was capable of working 44 feet of ground at one pass."
Production of the gas-powered Holt tracklayer began in 1908. C.L. Best built a tracklayer very similar to Holt's, and they were in fierce competition for a time. In 1925, though, they joined forces through a merger, forming the Caterpillar Tractor Company, based at Peoria, 111.
The early Holt tracklayer was used in many applications, including the timber industry in the northwest, and on World War I battlefields, where it was used to pull artillery. Pulling has always been the tracklayer's strong suit.
Jerry's interest in large gas tractors dates to 1991, when he got his first: an Aultman-Taylor 30-60. Since then, he's picked up nine more.
"Ten of them is an awful lot to maintain and keep running," he said. "It almost becomes a job after a while. Last summer, I took four of them to a local show, and by the time I got them cleaned up, hauled over and back, and drained for winter, it had almost consumed three or four weeks. I've almost come to the reality that I have enough, but one never knows..."
And besides, the retired instrumental music teacher has a few other dreams to pursue.
"One thing I would like to do sometime, but I don't know if I will do, is build a band organ. It'd be pneumatically controlled, and run off big rolls," he said. "I have a 1915 Packard truck, a flatbed, and I could put a steam engine on there that would run a crankshaft that would run a set of bellows that would make air and also a vacuum to run the band organ. It'd be kind of like a calliope; kind of a Rube Goldberg deal."
For more information: ferry Toews, 619 E. Main, Goessell, Kan. 67053; (316) 367-8257. FC