TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff 4/17/2024

[953 nut 56,690]

Champion Machine Company

 

When International Harvester was being formed by Cyrus McCormick Jr. and William Deering, they sought out partnerships or purchases of competing harvester companies to corner the harvester market.  Champion Machine was a very attractive buy because they had an established dealer network in twelve states & Europe, an up-to-date manufacturing plant and over a hundred patents.

William N Whiteley founded the Champion Reaper and Mower Works in Springfield, Ohio in 1855. In the late 1800s and early 1900s it was commonplace to have equipment dealers stage field trials to show-off the quality of their wares. At age 22 Whitley entered a local trial of reaping machines and demonstrated his new machine in the field. Champion was in direct competition with Warder, Bushnell, Glessner, & Co. who also made mowers. The two companies eventually merged soon becoming the largest manufactories of its type in the nation. Springfield became known as the “Champion City” and a few of Champion’s subcontractors also took on the Champion name, The Champion Bar & Knife Co. and The Champion Malleable Iron Foundry also located in Springfield.

I don’t know if this is fact or fable but this was too good to pass-up.

 William. N. Whiteley was quite a character according to some of the stories told about him. He was supposed to be a large ox of a man, a great salesman, and a bit of a hot head. It’s said at one time he was demonstrating a reaper with a competitor in the field with him. Not wanting to be shown up he unhitched one of the horses in his team and went on across the field with a single horse. The competitor not wanting to lose any sales did the same which really set Whitely off. Whitely unhitched the last horse and proclaimed I can pull the reaper myself. He unhitched the second horse and proceeded to pull the reaper across the field himself.

Champion Machine Company was bursting at the seams and built a new state-of-the-art factory complex of over a million square feet in 1884. Now all of Champion’s processes were under one roof, raw materials came in the back door and finished reapers, mowers and rakes went out the front door to be shipped to eager customers. By 1887 Champion was one of the most profitable companies in the United States with sales of over four million dollars. (Over 130 million in 2024 dollars)

Champion was one of the companies bought out with the formation of International Harvester in 1902 however, the Champion Line continued to be sold. All production moved to the Chicago IH factory and in 1908, the company marked a major milestone: sale of its 2,000,000th Champion machine.

Albert Krell, of the Krell-French Piano Company, purchased and remodeled the Champion factory in preparation to begin production of pianos when the factory went up in flames on Feb. 10, 1902.

 

[ri702bill 8,690]

There were,,,, a lot of century old Textile & Velvet mill buildings in central RI along various rivers. Not many left. Once a fire started, the oil soaked floors made the fire impossible to extinguish and they would burn for days. Most of the structurally sound mills have been updated and became condos with a "waterfront" view.....

Edited April 17, 2024 by ri702bill

[WHX?? 49,850]

4 hours ago, 953 nut said:

over a million square feet in 1884.

Quite the building in 1884. Must have employed more than one or two people not to mention construction jobs. 

Odd that IH didn't use it. 

[953 nut 56,690]

I am amazed at the size of some of the buildings farm machinery companies built around the turn of the century, of course it took a lot of people to hand build all of those machines.