The Square Turn Tractor
The one-man, two-way, all-purpose tractor from Nebraska
July 2009
Loretta Sorensen
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The design of the Square Turn tractor was revolutionary in its time, providing a two-way tractor said to be “better than a team” when it came to working in the field. The Elkhorn museum’s tractor, manufactured in 1918, is an 18-30 with mounted plow.
Loretta Sorensen
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For a farmer in 1914, the claims made about a new tractor must have seemed too good to be true.
Was the Square Turn tractor indeed the closest thing a teamster could find to a well-broke team? Advertisements promoting the machine boasted it was, noting that “the levers are the lines” and “the Square Turn tractor is easier to drive and handle than a one-horse rig.”
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The Square Turn was a progressive, unique tractor for its time. Conceived by two Nebraska men, A.T. Kenney and A.J. Colwell, it seemed perfectly designed for farm use. Kenney was a successful farmer and Colwell had 14 years’ experience as superintendent of construction on the C&NW Railroad. Colwell supplied mechanical genius and Kenney provided practical farming experience. The partners formed the Kenney-Colwell Co., Norfolk, Neb., and began taking customer orders in 1914.
“The two inventors worked untiringly in the shop and in the field until they had produced a one-man tractor that would turn short and square, that would get close to the fence corners, that would carry the plows below and in full view of the operator, and that would handle as easily as any team [of horses],” write Nancy Zaruba and Karen Rogat in their booklet, Norfolk’s Very Own Square Turn Tractor.
A new approach
The Square Turn’s transmission featured radical new technology covered by eight patents. “This invention was called ‘the giant grip drive,’ a new type of transmission never before used in any piece of machinery,” the booklet notes. “Its simplicity, flexibility of control and durability, as well as freedom from repair costs, made it the center of interest at eight great national tractor demonstrations.”
The giant grip drive was designed to provide an entirely new device for transmitting power. Kenney and Colwell claimed the new drive did away with the clutch, differential gears, transmission gears and the universal joint common in other tractors. Advertisements promoted the fact that the tractor’s unique design eliminated a number of common problems. It had fewer parts than other tractors, it carried the plow and other tools in full view of the operator, and it worked on hills and low land, where most tractors could not operate.
Kenney and Colwell powered the Square Turn with a 510-cubic-inch Climax 4-cylinder engine that could run on either kerosene or gas and was rated at 35 hp with 18 hp on the drawbar. The machine’s belt pulley could provide power to a threshing machine, sawmill and other farm machinery.
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