Fordson Model F Crawler Worth the Wait

By Bill Vossler
Published on January 28, 2013
article image
by Bill Vossler
Jack Domogalla’s 1927 Fordson Model F crawler.

Jack Domogalla is nothing if not patient. How patient? He waited 40 years to get hold of a tractor of his dreams, a 1927 Fordson Model F crawler with a front-end winch.

Jack lives in Cedar, Minn., now, but he grew up in central North Dakota on a homestead his parents took near relatives. “When the Great Depression came along, most of my uncles left,” he says, “but Dad and Mother stayed out there and farmed.”

The Domogallas used Rumely and Allis-Chalmers and, especially pertinent to young Jack, Fordson tractors. “That’s how I got into Fordsons,” he explains. “When I was a kid, our 1923 Fordson was the first one I could drive. During World War II we couldn’t get any tractors or parts, so we ran the old ones and that was one of them that I ran.”

Later, while working for a Minneapolis-Moline dealership in Minnesota, Jack delivered tractors to farmers, affording him the chance to spot old tractors in sheds and tree groves. That led him to buying old tractors, like his 1935 English Fordson N with a plow that he bought (for $80) from a farmer in 1950. “I still have that one,” he says, “sitting right next to my crawler.”

Always a bridesmaid

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