Oliver Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Oliver Corporation was a tractor manufacturer formed in 1929 by the merger of the Oliver Chilled Plow Company, the Nichols and Shepard Company, the American Seeding Machine Company, and the Hart-Parr Tractor Company. The company no longer exists, and its patents are now owned by AGCO Corporation.
Contents |
[edit] Hart-Parr Oliver
Charles Walter Hart was born at Charles City, Iowa in 1872. At the age of twenty, he transferred from Iowa State College of Agriculture and Arts, to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was here that he met Charles H. Parr, and the two young men became fast friends. Eventually, Hart and Parr would work together on their Special Honours Thesis, presented in 1896, from which they created their first engine.
Before their graduation in 1897, they had formed the Hart-Parr Gasoline Engine Company, specializing in oil-cooled farm engines. Based upon their demonstrated engines, they were able to borrow $3,000 locally to set up the gas engine company. Unfortunately, investors were not interested in gasoline traction engines. Towards the end of 1899, Charles Hart paid a visit to his parents in Charles City, Iowa. He complained to his father that development funds could not be found for his tractor project. "There's money around here that might be interested," replied the elder Hart, admitting for the first time that his son's ambition was not folly.
In 1900, as the engine business expanded, Hart and Parr decided to move their company from Madison to Charles City. Hart-Parr Company was organized on June 12, 1901 at Charles City, Iowa. Ground was broken for the new factory on July 5 that year. By the following December, the Hart-Parr Company was now ready to do business, and had an authorized capitalization of $100,000.00.
Hart-Parr number 1 was completed in 1902. Customers did not immediately beat the proverbial path. However, Hart-Parr was able to field one salesman to run demonstrations at county fairs and other events. Hart was patient. "We can't force it," he said. "We have to let it simmer into the market."
Little by little, the Hart-Parrs began to gather defenders. Some of the first tractors delivered were gaining a reputation of usefulness that far surpassed that of the steamers.
W.H. Williams, Sales Manager in 1906, decided the words "traction engine" were vague and too long to be used in press releases, so he coined the word "Tractor" instead. For this reason, and because the Charles City plant was the first to be continuously and exclusively used for tractor production, Hart-Parr has been given the title of "Founders of the Tractor Industry".
[edit] Oliver Chilled Plow Company
James Oliver was born in Scotland on August 28, 1823, and immigrated to America in 1834 when he was eleven.
The family landed in Garden Castle, New York. James later recounted that as a bewildered lad on the dock, he was given an orange by one man, and a kick by another. He never forgot either. A few years later the family moved west to Indiana. James was afforded one year of schooling, but that abruptly ended when his father died in 1837.
James then hired himself out to the owner of a pole-boat for $6.00 per week. He took $5.00 of it home to his mother. Although James liked the river, he did not take to the rowdy life of a riverman. He quit the occupation and began to learn the iron molding trade.
Bad times in the iron business saw James also learn the cooper's trade. James was married in 1844 and worked at molding, coopering, and farming, until he was thirty-two years old. By then, he and his wife had a $1,000.00 house and a quarter-section of land.
It was at this time that an event occurred in the life of James Oliver that would greatly affect his future, the future of many others, and the future of agriculture worldwide. While in South Bend on business, Oliver met a man who wanted to sell a quarter interest in his foundry at the inventory value ($88.96). Oliver happened to have $100.00 in his pocket at the time. Thus, in 1855, James Oliver found himself in the cast-iron business in the role of management, rather than that of a worker. One of the products of the foundry was a cast-iron plow. James knew plows and none that he tried were satisfactory.
Attempts to harden the cast-iron plow began almost with the first use of these plows, to make them more durable. Making the chilled plow a practical success was due to the efforts of James Oliver.
The chilled plow, due to its very hard outer skin, was able to scour in heavy soils. It was also capable of greater wearability than common cast-iron plows. So, Oliver really solved two problems.
On July 22, 1868, the South Bend Iron Works was incorporated to manufacture the Oliver Chilled Plow.
In 1870, the famous Oliver trade mark was designed and adapted, appearing on every Oliver chilled plow.
James Oliver died in 1908 at the age of eighty-five. Joseph D. Oliver became head of the company. Joseph had rare gifts for organization and marketing, and the company continued to thrive and expand. It was Joseph who led the company into the amalgamation with Hart-Parr and others in 1929, to form the Oliver Farm Equipment Company.
[edit] Oliver Corporation
Four companies joined forces on April 1, 1929. The Oliver Chilled Plow Company dated from 1855. Hart-Parr Tractor Company began operations in 1897, and the American Seeding Machine Company, dated back to 1848. Nichols and Shepard Company, likewise began operations in 1848.
By 1929, each of these companies had essentially outgrown its usefulness to the industry. For most of them, the market had some time earlier reached a saturation point. In some instances, their machines were badly dated and rapidly approaching obsolescence. For each of these companies to have attempted further activity on solo basis would almost have certainly been disastrous. By uniting their various and somewhat diverse product lines into a single company, Oliver Farm Equipment instantly became a virtual full-line manufacturer. Within a few years after its formation the corporate name was shortened to simply read Oliver Corporation.
For the first couple of years, the tractors carried the Oliver- Hart-Parr designation, but the Hart-Parr essence soon disappeared, just as an entirely new line of purely Oliver tractors made their appearance.
Subsequent to 1929, Oliver Corporation acquired several successful companies, in order to broaden the already extensive Oliver line.
Cleveland Tractor Company became a part of the Oliver family in 1944. Crawler tractor production ended at Charles City in 1965.
In 1948, Oliver was ready with an entirely new line of tractors. These were built over the successes of the past, including the Oliver 60, 70, and 80 tractors.
The latter was even built with a diesel engine, although very few were sold. However, in the 1950's, Oliver was an industry leader through their promotion of diesel power. Oliver led the industry in the sale of diesel tractor for several years.
The Oliver 66, 77 and 88 tractors of the 1948 to 1954 period, marked an entirely new series of Fleetline models. The 77 and 88 could be bought with either gasoline or diesel engines. During 1954, the company upgraded these tractors with the new "Super" series models, and added the Oliver Super 55. It was the company's first compact utility tractor.
In 1958, Oliver began marketing the new 660, 770, 880, 990, and other new models.
White Motor Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio had a long history of truck manufacturing. On November 1, 1960, White Motor acquired Oliver Corporation as a wholly owned subsidiary. White also acquired Cockshutt Farm Equipment of Canada in February, 1962, and it was made a subsidiary of Oliver Corporation.
Cockshutt Canada had also previously in 1928, marketed tractors made by Hart-Parr and again from 1934 through the late 1940's, marketed tractors made by Oliver, only changing the paint colour to red, and changing the name tags to Cockshutt. Minneapolis-Moline became a wholly owned subsidiary of White Motor Corporation in 1963. The Minneapolis-Moline line was blended into that of Oliver until there was virtually no difference between them.
In 1960, the new four-digit tractor models appeared. Among them were the 1600, 1700, 1800 and 1900 models. In 1969 White Motor Corporation formed White Farm Equipment Company, almost immediately after a transitional period when virtually identical tractors were marketed under different trade names. A few models were sold as Oliver, Minneapolis, or Cockshutt, the major difference being the paint colour. As the transaction continued, the White name was more and more applied to the tractor line, with the Oliver 2255, also known as the White 2255, being the last purely "Oliver" tractor. With the introduction of the White 4-150 Field Boss in 1974, the White name would be used, henceforth to the exclusion of all others.
[edit] External links and sources
- The Hart-Parr Oliver Collector Magazine
- Greenleigh Farm's Oliver Tractor Site - contains pictures of Oliver Tractors and Oliver Tractor models
- www.cockshutt.com
