This month’s Vintage Iron photos were given to me by Joe Winter while we were visiting about old iron at the Southeast Kansas Old Time Gas Engine & Tractor Show, held June 27-28 in Pittsburg. That group also has a fall swap meet coming up on Oct. 10 at the Crawford County Historical Museum Grounds, Pittsburg. For more information on that event, contact Joe at (417) 927-3254.
These photos are of an old tractor rear end and wheels that Joe rescued from a salvage yard. He tracked down the person who hauled in the parts, and found that they came from the Grant Lockwood farm south of Fort Scott, Kan. The farm was being cleaned up, and it was “just old junk,” Joe was told. At 15 cents a pound, Joe saved it from the melting pot. But he has no idea what kind of tractor it was.
Looking through the Encyclopedia of American Farm Tractors by C.H. Wendel, I have found that it looks like the parts could belong to a GO tractor built by General Ordnance Co., Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If any of our readers can help identify these parts, please let us (or Joe) know. The only numbers or identifying marks are on the top of the rear end, where “Patented 7007” is inscribed. The wheels measure approximately 10 inches wide by 46 inches tall, the same as the GO’s specifications.
I have known Joe for a number of years. We met at the Waukee, Iowa, swap meet several years ago, and we convoyed together with our loads of old engine iron to Kissimmee, Fla., in 1995. Joe collects IHC gasoline engines, Whizzer, Cushman and Doodle Bug scooters, old tractors, toy trains, old guns, steam engines, tools and lots of other ‘trumpery’ (his word!). If any of you can use the old tractor parts Joe has, and have something to trade, give him a call. He doesn’t plan to build anything from them; he just did his part in saving more of our farm heritage from the scrappers. Mail will reach him at Box 92, Richards, MO 64778. FC
