TRACTOR TRIVIA and other interesting stuff 6/8/2024

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Ohio Cultivator Co.

 

 

The drudgery of walking behind a horse-drawn cultivator sparked a thought that led to the foundation of substantial farm machinery company.

Harlow Case Stahl raised hops which require extensive cultivation. Cultivators of the day that worked only one side of a single row in each pass requiring horse and farmer to walk each side of every row. Stahl fabricated a wheeled machine that straddled the row and cultivated both sides in one pass and a hammock seat at the rear of the cultivator allowed the operator to ride while he cultivated.

Stahl was convinced that other farmers would want to ride while they worked so he and a blacksmith built a prototype “Freemont Cultivator” and took it out to area farmers to demonstrate his new invention. In 1878 he built 85 riding cultivators and sold 81 of them.

By 1882 sales were over 1,000 Fremont Cultivators and production was exceeding his small factory’s capabilities. In Bellevue, Ohio, an abandoned barrel plant had been empty since 1880 and became the new home of Freemont Cultivators. Another manufacturing company began building a cultivator also named the Fremont. Rather than going through the courts to fight them Stahl changed the name of his machine to the “Famous Ohio Cultivator.”

At its beginning the plant was only in operation the first few months of each year since cultivator demand lasted only a few summer months each year. As the demand for Ohio Cultivators increased Stahl was able to produce them year-round to have an ample supply each spring.

Stahl was also a shrewd marketer. In the late 1890s, he sent a salesman with a boxcar full of implements to Kansas, where they all were sold. In 1901, a 40-car train loaded with Famous Ohio machinery was again sent to Kansas. This time the boxcars were draped with large banners advertising Ohio Cultivator Co., while American flags flew from each car. Stahl, company officials and the Bellevue city band accompanied the train as far as Toledo. At each town the train stopped, the band played and crowds of spectators gathered to watch the spectacle.

The Bellevue Gazette wrote:   One couldn’t imagine the cost of sending this train to Kansas, the freight bill alone amounted to $4,000. As this monster train moves through the country, villages and populous cities, it will be a big advertisement not only for Ohio Cultivator but Bellevue.

Stahl began a long-term program to broaden his manufacturing line. In 1896, he bought a Dayton, Ohio, disk harrow plant, and the Bellevue Plow Co. in 1899. The Ohio Haypress Co. was added in 1900, and the Bissell Plow Co. of South Bend, IN, in 1905. Now 300 men worked for Ohio Cultivator Company. Ohio Cultivator acquired 59 patents including a 1905 redesign of the hay press and a ditch digger device in 1914.

In 1923, Stahl acquired the D.M. Sechler Implement & Carriage Co. of Moline, IL, along with its Blackhawk line of planters and grain drills. By 1927 Stahl was virtually retired and the general manager Daniel Seltzer ran the day-to-day business. That year, Seltzer negotiated the purchase of the Non-Pariel Manufacturing Co. of Cochranton, PA, builders of lime-and-fertilizer spreaders; the Angell Plow Co., Plains, KS, builders of disc plows; and the Thomas Manufacturing Co. of Springfield, Ohio, makers of grain drills and a full line of haymaking tools, including the Thomas two-speed mower.

Following Stahl’s death in 1941 National Farm Machine Cooperative bought Ohio Cultivator. After WW II, the demand for new farm machinery was huge, and NFMC spent millions expanding the Bellevue plant, along with NFMC’s other plant in Shelbyville. When the machinery market began to cool about 1950, NFMC became financially overextended, and the firm went into voluntary receivership in 1952.

Cockshutt wanted to build a marketing network in the United States so, in 1952, Cockshutt Farm Equipment bought the Bellevue and Shelbyville plants. Cockshutt continued to build the Blackhawk planter line, along with Famous Ohio manure spreaders and discs. However, by 1955, the Bellevue plant was closed, with all manufacturing moved to Canadian facilities.