Tracking Roots of the Happy Farmer

Enlarge Image Image Gallery A dealer’s demonstration on the Seiler farm near La Crosse, Wis., Nov. 7, 1917. Following the event, dealers from 32 states placed orders for 2,327 machines totaling $2,262,000.

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Randy, though, has a different perspective. Blending interests in steel-wheeled tractors and history, he’s writing a book on the history of the La Crosse Tractor Co. Based on preliminary research, he’s confident the Happy Farmer was more than a regional product. “Hirshheimer knew his business,” Randy says. “He knew how to sell, and a lot of these tractors were sold for export.” Happy Farmers have been found throughout the U.S., as well as in France, South America and Great Britain.

La Crosse produced six models: Model A, Model B, Model F (a redesign of the Model B), Model G (the first of the line to have four wheels), Model H (the last of the line, resembling the Model G), and Model M, a line-drive tractor (and the only line-drive tractor ever tested in the Nebraska Tractor Test program). The line-drive feature was also available on the G and H models as a factory option.

Though the company promoted its tractors as being well built and reliable, actual use suggested something different. The Reysens’ Model B, for instance, had only one original gear section on either drive wheel, and it needed to be replaced. “That means that while this tractor was being used as a field tractor, no fewer than seven gear sections had been replaced,” Randy says.

Indeed, an old saying notes the two happiest days in a Happy Farmer owner’s life: the day he got the tractor and the day he got rid of it. “In parts of Wisconsin, farmers couldn’t even sell Happy Farmers back to the dealer,” Randy says. “The dealers wouldn’t take them in trade.” Consequently, many owners stockpiled Happy Farmers for parts. FC

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