H.A. Wetmore Turned Adversity into Advantage

By Loretta Sorensen
Published on August 26, 2009
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“My two girls cut 175 acres of wheat in seven days,” reads this ad. “Anyone with a little horse sense can run it.”
“My two girls cut 175 acres of wheat in seven days,” reads this ad. “Anyone with a little horse sense can run it.”
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Entrepreneur and inventor H.A. “Harry” Wetmore.
Entrepreneur and inventor H.A. “Harry” Wetmore.
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“Pulls like a team of bull elephants but won’t rear up in front” is another Wetmore ad claim.
“Pulls like a team of bull elephants but won’t rear up in front” is another Wetmore ad claim.

Editor’s note: This brief biography of H.A. Wetmore and his company is in addition to “The Wetmore Tractor,” Loretta Sorensen’s article on Wayne and Roxie Ebright’s restored circa-1920 Wetmore.

Traction supremacy was the hallmark H.A. “Harry” Wetmore lauded in advertising the tractor he designed and built in Sioux City, Iowa, from 1919 to approximately 1938.

Early ads crowed, “Wetmore 12-25 Holds the World’s Plowing Record.” Writers hailed the tractor’s ability to handle “three plows in heavy gumbo 9 inches deep,” conditions that offered little resistance to the innovative tractor.

“At Fresno, Calif., it was put to work in a field spotted with hard ground and loose soft sand with the thermometer registering 110 degrees – a most severe test for any tractor,” the ad continued. “In the face of these conditions, the Wetmore 12-25 pulled three disc plows on second speed, 14 inches deep, without a halt at a speed of a little over 1/3 mile in five minutes [or 4 mph]. The fuel cost was extraordinarily low because on second speed you deliver all your power direct to drives and no transmission gears are at work.”

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