The Utilitor: Big Power for Small Operations

Manager’s memories

Company ownership seems to have changed as well. In the February 1995 issue of Gas Engine Magazine appeared a letter from Arthur H. Beard Jr. “The following account is based on memory about events my father, Arthur H. Beard, told me through the years,” he wrote.           

“My father moved the family from Chicago Heights, Ill., to Indianapolis early in 1924. I was 6 years old. He took over the operation of the Utilitor Tractor Co. In what position I do not know, or what percent of ownership, if any, he had in the company. Business must have been good, because in 1926 my father built a nice home on the east side of Indianapolis across the street from the Pleasant Run Golf Course and we lived there until about a year after my mother died in 1930. I think it was also in 1926, or maybe 1927, that Vincent Bendix (of Bendix starter and brake fame) wanted the Utilitor company, and as my father did not have the financial resources necessary to fight him, my father lost the Utilitor company.”

The Utilitor was built with virtually no changes until 1937 or ’38. By that time, it seems to have become the property of General Implement Co. of America and was modernized, but that’s another story. FC 

Sam Moore grew up on a farm in western Pennsylvania. He now lives in Salem, Ohio, and collects antique tractors, implements and related items. Contact Sam by email at letstalkrustyiron@att.net.