TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff 5/10/2024

[953 nut 55,155]

Today’s letter is “H” Huber built a history of hometown heritage.

 

Huber Tractors: A Proud Tradition

 

Edwin Huber was a blacksmith who developed a revolving hay rake. In 1863, at the age of 26, Huber was granted a patent for this machine. It was the first of the more than one hundred he would receive during his lifetime.

Huber Manufacturing Company began in 1874 building threshers and other farm machinery. They started production of portable steam engines in 1877 followed by a steam traction engine in 1878.  An important innovation was the Huber patented double pass boiler producing 40% greater efficiency than a straight flue engine.

 Huber entered the heavy construction- equipment market by pioneering the use of weighted rollers on his steam engines to compact the road surface.

In 1892 John Froelich had produced the first successful gas tractor using a Van Duzen vertical cylinder engine. Edward Huber was so impressed with the Van Duzen engine that he bought the company.

In 1898, Huber Mfg. Co. produced its first gas tractor. These tractors used a modified Huber steam traction engine frame, transmission and steering mechanism powered by a Van Duzen gas engine. Huber became the earliest manufacturers to mass produce a gas farm tractor having built thirty units. Steam was still king at the time and the gasoline engine tractor needed further development.

When Huber returned to gas tractor market in 1911 significant improvements had been made in both ignition and carburetion systems. The “Farmer’s Tractor” had a 2-cylinder engine with 311 CID. It was sold as more or less a portable power unit for belt work. A great deal of testing took place to make the Huber a true tractor.

In 1915 Huber brought out a 20-40 2-cylinder tractor with a massive 962 cubic inch displacement engine.

The next generation of Huber tractors, the Light Four 12-25, appeared in 1916. This tractor used a four-cylinder Waukesha engine with a 289 CID mounted crosswise on the frame. With the engine being mounted across the frame gearing was simplified. In 1919, Huber upgraded the Light Four using a Waukesha engine with a 365 CID. These high-front wheel models were Huber’s first truly successful tractors with production continuing until 1928.

1929 brought the next generation of the Huber tractor. It utilized the “Wallis U-Frame” method of construction which reduced the tractor’s weight by around 2,000 pounds.

Huber used its arched front axle 10-20 Modern Farmer tractor in 1930 then adopted the tricycle design for the Modern Farmer cultivating tractor. Three hundred of these tractors were sold to Farm Bureau as CO-OP tractors in 1935. Modern Farmer L and LC tractors were built up to the end of production in 1942.

The final evolution of Huber farm tractors made its debut in 1936 as the Model B. This 2- to 3-plow tractor was Huber’s only styled tractor and was marketed until 1942.

Huber farm tractors were produced from 1898 until 1942 when the War Powers Act of 1941 decreed that Huber concentrate on road construction equipment in support of the war effort. After the war, Huber did not return to the farm equipment business.

However, the Model B became the platform for the Huber Maintainer, an adaptable road montane tractor. With the many attachments fitted to the machine, the Maintainer became a motor grader, a loader, bucket, bulldozer, side dozer, scarifier, berm leveler, road sweeper (broom) and a sickle bar roadside mower. Production of the Huber Maintainer ended when the parent company, ATO, closed the doors to the manufacturing facility in 1984.

Edward Huber was a civic leader guiding the city into the industrial revolution. He was instrumental in the building of the Marion Electric Company, the Marion Street Railway, the Marion Oil Company, the Marion Tool Works, and the Prendergast Lumber Company. He founded the Marion Building and Loan Company and the Marion Malleable Iron Company.

[JoeM 7,871]

Many of these articles mention the transition from steam to gas power around the turn of the century. I wonder, if at the time, how much resistance to the internal combustion engine was going on? Like today's resistance to electric. Do you figure in 80 years some tractor person will be writing about the evolution of the electric tractors during our times? 

This might just be one ad. 

 

[Handy Don 12,201]

3 hours ago, 953 nut said:

Huber built a history of hometown heritage

Excellent use of alliteration! 👍