Oliver Tractors trace their routes back to Hart-Parr and Oliver.
Hart-Parr
Charles Walter Hart and Charles H. Parr met at the University of
Wisconsin, and while working on their Special Honours Thesis, presented in 1896,
created their first engine.
After graduation, the Hart-Parr Company was organized on June
12, 1901 at Charles City, Iowa, and Hart-Parr Number 1 was completed in
1902. The "traction engine" was not an immediate success, but in
1906 W.H. Williams, Sales Manager, coined the term "tractor", and from
then on Hart-Parr was known as the "Founders of the Tractor Industry".
Oliver Chilled Plow Company
James Oliver was born in Scotland on August 28, 1823, and in
1834, at age eleven, he immigrated to Garden Castle, New York with his
family. The family moved west to Indiana, but his schooling ended in 1837
with the death of his father. He went to work for the owner of a
pole-boat, but not liking the rowdy life of a river man, he quit to learn the
iron molding trade.
James married in 1844 and worked at molding, coopering, and
farming. In 1855, while in South Bend, Indiana on business, Oliver met a
man who wanted to sell a quarter interest in his foundry for the inventory value
($88.96). Oliver happened to have $100 in his pocket at the time, and thus
he became an owner in the cast iron plow business.
As a farmer, James knew that none of the cast iron plows he had
used were satisfactory. James made the chilled plow a practical success;
it's very hard outer skin was able to scour in heavy soils.
On July 22, 1868 the South Bend Iron Works was incorporated to
manufacture the Oliver Chilled Plow, and in 1870 the famous Oliver logo was
designed.
James Oliver died in 1908 at the age of eighty-five, and Joseph
D. Oliver became head of the company. Joseph had tremendous organization
and marketing skills, and the company continued to thrive and expand, and it was
Joseph who led the company into the amalgamation with Hart-Parr and others in
1929, to form the Oliver Farm Equipment Company.
Oliver Corporation
By 1929 the Hart-Parr Tractor Company, the American Seeding
Machine Company, and the Nichols and Shepard Company were producing machinery
that was becoming obsolete, and they lacked the capital and expertise to
continue further progress. So, on April 1, 1929, these three companies
merged with the Oliver Chilled Plow Company to form the Oliver Farm Equipment
Corporation. This full line manufacturer shortened its name a few years
later to Oliver Corporation.
The Oliver Corporation continued to innovate, with diesel
engines and, in the 1948 to 1954 period, a new series of Fleetline models.
On November 1, 1960 White Motor Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio,
a truck manufacturer, 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.
(In 1928 Cockshutt Canada had marketed tractors made by
Hart-Parr, and from 1934 through the late 1940's had marketed tractors made by
Oliver, only changing the paint colour red, and changing the name tags to
Cockshutt).
In 1969 White Motor Corporation formed White Farm Equipment
Company, and gradually began transitioning to the White name. The Oliver
2255, also known as the White 2255, was the last purely "Oliver"
tractor. With the introduction of the White 4-150 Field Boss in 1974, the
White name was used exclusively; the Oliver name was no more. In 1985 the
White Farm Equipment Company was placed in involuntary bankruptcy. Today
the patents are the property of Agco-Allis.
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