On the Kokes family farm near Wagner, South Dakota, John Deere’s iconic green-and-yellow equipment dominates the farmyard. In contrast to the family’s mammoth modern tractors, the 1950s-era John Deere MC crawler tucked away in an equipment shed may not seem impressive. However, its value comes from this machine’s connection to the Kokes family — and the crawler’s role in John Deere history.
“This crawler was originally sold at the Wagner John Deere dealership to a family named Cuka,” Jay Kokes says. “My grandfather, Bly Kloucek, bought it from the Cukas and used it to work in a gravel pit and to put up silage. The gravel pit was on my Uncle Kenny Kloucek’s farm, about half a mile from Grandpa’s farm. I was pretty young when they were using the crawler at the gravel pit, but I remember seeing them push gravel with it.”
Jay, who spent significant time with his grandfather on the farm, had no idea what became of the crawler after his grandfather’s death. “I was only about six when Grandpa passed away,” Jay says. “A few years ago, I got a call from a farmer, Jim Deurmier, east of here by Irene, South Dakota.”
Jim had purchased the crawler from Jay’s grandfather and later restored it. Jim was already acquainted with Jay, but after learning that Jay was Bly’s grandson, he offered to sell the crawler to him.
“It wasn’t running when Jim bought it, so he got it running again and re-restored it,” Jay says. “We appreciate having this family heirloom. I may use it to plow sometime. I have an old tractor plow that needs to be restored before I can use it. For now, we take it out and drive it around the yard occasionally.”
Fast growing West Coast ag market designed for crawlers
In 1904, Holt Mfg. Co. steam traction engines were widely used in California’s thriving agricultural industry. However, the soft soil that was common in large areas of California agricultural land frequently caused the steam engines to bog down. Benjamin Holt devised a system of linked tracks faced with wood-block treads. His tracks proved to be successful, and the world of agriculture – and soon, the world of construction – was forever changed.
Years later in the 1930s, a drought-plagued farm economy put pressure on tractor manufacturers like Deere. “Although farmers seemed to be adopting tractors in monumental numbers, the 1930 census reported that still less that 15 percent of farmers reported owning a tractor,” Holly Bollinger writes in John Deere Tractors: The First Generation of Power. “Those who did own tractors cut their labor hours in half per bushel of corn, and by more than 60 percent per bushel of wheat. But higher productivity served only to further afflict the farm economy and land values plummeted at the onset of the Great Depression.”
Bollinger noted that just 38 tractor makers were in business in 1930. In 1933, Deere & Co. sold only 765 tractors. The good news: A growing market on the West Coast. Producers in Washington state’s apple orchards were turning to mechanized power to save on labor costs during a period of declining profits. But in sandy Pacific Northwest soils, wheeled tractors faced the same issue that Holt’s steam engine encountered nearly 30 years earlier in California.
New dealer gets hands-on experience
Thirty-year-old Jesse Lindeman, a Yakima, Washington, businessman, would play a key role in solving the marketing issues facing tractor manufacturers and help save his state’s apple orchards in the process. Lindeman’s Cletrac franchise crawler dealership was struggling. In 1930, impressed by the proven power and performance of the John Deere Model D, Lindeman transitioned to a full-line John Deere dealership.
Deere’s tractors gave orchard growers what they needed for power, but the tractors’ wheels proved problematic in Pacific Northwest soils. That prompted Lindeman to engineer a hand-built Model D crawler, retrofitted with a set of surplus Best Model 30 tracks and rollers.
Meanwhile, Deere’s efforts to engineer its own Model D crawler were unsuccessful. Beginning in 1929, Deere and Lindeman joined forces on production of the Model GP Orchard and later the Model BO Lindeman crawlers. The Lindeman-Deere connection continued until 1945, when Deere purchased the Lindeman company.
New factory for a new tractor
In 1947, Deere arrived at a turning point. A new factory was built in Dubuque, Iowa, where the new M series tractor was to be manufactured. According to The Bigger Book of John Deere Tractors, the Model M was designed to replace small Moline-built models, the smallest of the Waterloo tractors: the H, BR, BO and B row crop. “The M was designed to provide a complete system for smaller farms and a useful support tractor on larger farms,” author Don Macmillan notes.
The real strength of the Model M was its hydraulic Touch-O-Matic system that allowed precise control of the rockshaft as in Power-Trol. At the Nebraska Test Laboratory, the Model M produced 18.15 drawbar and 20.45 belt hp at 1,650rpm. By March 1947, the first 50 Model M tractors had rolled off Dubuque’s production line.
The Lindeman team produced mock-ups of a Model M crawler for Deere leadership. In Dubuque, Deere designer Harold Borsheim created a design that would ultimately go into production. “It was quite successful in the yellow (Industrial) market,” author Rod Beemer writes in Smaller John Deere Tractors. “Borsheim became the father of the Model MC and finished his career on the crawler tractors for Deere.”
Setting the stage for a new division
In May 1945, Deere acquired Lindeman’s company, establishing Deere’s Yakima Works. “Production of the Model MC crawler took place in two different segments,” authors Brian Rukes and Andy Krushaar note in Original John Deere Letter Series Tractors. “The basic Model Ms were built at Dubuque, then shipped without wheels to Yakima. There, the track assemblies (which Deere also bought the rights to) were installed; the Model MCs were born.”
Production began in 1949 with serial numbers starting at 10001. The final serial number, 20509, was assigned in 1952. A total of 10,509 Model MC crawlers were produced.
With the Model MC, John Deere had designed and built its own track-type tractor based on the same vertical engine used in its M and MT tractors. The MC crawler and the industrial version of the M (the MI) became the basis for Deere’s industrial division later launched in Dubuque.
In a 1950 Nebraska laboratory test, the John Deere Model MC produced 18.3 drawbar and 22.2 belt hp. The MC’s track-type design allowed a maximum pull of 4,226 pounds compared with only 2,329 pounds for the rubber-tired Model M. The MC’s four-speed transmission generated a slow 0.8mph in low gear, 2.2mph in second, 2.9mph in third, and a not-so-fast 4.7 mph in fourth gear. The MC’s track shoes were available in 10- and 14-inch widths. Tread widths were offered in 36- and 42-inch options.
In advertisements, Deere referred to the crawler as being “The compact, powerful, economical Model MC, for use wherever extra flotation is needed … in light soils, wet, loose ground, rough terrain, woodlands, etc.”
Engineering ingenuity
In his book, Beemer notes that one of the Model M’s innovative features was its vertical engine, rather than the horizontal engines long used in Deere’s Waterloo tractors. Beemer says that Mike Mack, retired from his role as director of Deere’s Product Engineering Center in Waterloo, thought the change originated with Willard Nordenson and his engineering groups in Moline.
“We worked in Moline as an engineering group on the design of the Model M while the factory was being built in Dubuque,” Mack told Beemer. “Nordenson was his own guy. That is what it really boils down to: Nordenson decided to do his thing, and by making it vertical, it set it [the tractor] a little bit apart.”
Mack told Beemer that Nordenson “did other things differently” as well. In designing the Model M, Nordenson moved away from the hand-operated clutch used on Waterloo tractors. “I used to hear Nordenson use the expression, ‘I don’t think an operator has enough hands to use a hand clutch.’ So he put a conventional foot-operated clutch on the Model M tractor.”
Hydraulics for the Model M were designed by Dan Hall. “Dan did something unique on the hydraulics,” Mack explained to Beemer. “The rockshaft had two telescoping shafts, one inside the other, so you could raise the right side or left side independently. I believe that was a first on Deere tractors.”
The Model M also represented Deere’s first use of spiral bevel gears. “Nobody in Deere had ever designed a spiral bevel differential,” Mack said. “The engineers at Gleason Works of Rochester, New York, designed and developed the tooling to make a spiral bevel gear in the differential. Deere, of course, bought the tooling and manufacturing equipment from Gleason.” FC
Loretta Sorensen is a lifelong resident of southeast South Dakota. She and her husband farm with Belgian draft horses and collect vintage farm equipment. Email her at sorensenlms@gmail.com.
