As you are walking down the first Quonset at the Schwanke Museum there is a row of International Harvester tractors toward the end of the line of the tractors you will see a trailer with three mogul engines ( I will write about them later) a 1917 International Cultivator, two 1916 IHC Mogul 8-16 and a 1920 IHC 10-20. The first is the 1917 International Cultivator next to that is the first of the Moguls the International 8-16 four cylinder which has a cover that encloses the engine. Next is the 1920 IHC Titan 10-20, then the 1916 Mogul 8-16. If you haven’t been to the museum or if you walk to fast you will these missed these four tractors and then you will have missed out. All four tractors have been restored to their original state. Like everything I have written about on this blog I will give you the history of the manufacturer. Lately I have been a little long winded so I will give you the history up to the point of the manufacturing of the tractors because the International Harvester Company is still manufacturing tractors still today under the name of Case IH.
International Harvester Company
The roots of International Harvester go back to the 1830s,
when inventor Cyrus Hall McCormick from Virginia created his own version of a
horse-drawn reaper. He would take his reaper and field-demonstrated throughout
1831. He received a patent for his design in 1834. Together with his brother
Leander J. McCormick (1819–1900), they decide on together to move to Chicago
in 1847 and there they would start the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company.
The McCormick reaper sold well, mainly because McCormick developed a marketing
and sales technique. The company developed a vast network of trained salesmen who
were able to demonstrate how to operate the machines in the field. What also
help sales of their products was that the development of railroad and its expansion
offered wide distribution to distant market areas. Business was booming as a result
of McCormick’s savvy and innovative business practices.
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| 1916 International Mogul 8-16 |
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| 1920 International Harvester Titan 10-20 |
McCormick passed away in 1884, and his company was passed to
his son, Cyrus McCormick, Jr. The success of the company caught the eye of J.P.
Morgan so in 1902, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and Deering
Harvester Company, along with three other small agricultural equipment firms (Milwaukee;
Plano; and Warder, Bushnell, and Glessner who were the manufacturers
of Champion brand) would merge and this would create the International
Harvester Company. Even after the merger of these companies, they pretty much
operated as before as separate divisions with competition high between both
divisions. One division would work on designing the Mogul while the other
worked on the Titan design. The first tractor produced was the friction drive
and it was a combination of a chassis designed by the Ohio Manufacturing Company
and the International Harvesters horizontal stationary engine. This proved to
be a successful which prompted them to continue developing tractors. Many of
these tractors were large and cumbersome of course the primary purpose was to
break large plots of ground and to power equipment with the tractors belt
pulley. By 1910 the company’s management pushed the two divisions to build
smaller, cheaper and to make the tractors more efficient. The group that built
the Mogul produced the Mogul 12-25 and the 8-16 and the failure prone International
8-16 but it proved to be a revolution in the tractor world.
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| 1916 Mogul 8-16 |
The group that worked on the Titan produced the ever
reliable 10-20 and their own 12-25. These tractors would spearhead the model
lines and dominate the market until the introduction of the Fordson. It was
decided in 1917 to move the two divisions together effectively ending the
competition between the two staffs. The Fordson was now providing the real
competition, so it was time for the designers to come up with either a cheaper tractor
or a tractor that was better than the competitions. With the two departments
together they would come up with another legendary tractor and it was marketed
as a motorized cultivator tractor, but it was expensive to make, so it was back
to the drawing board. Only a few hundred of the cultivator tractors were made
and were marketed from 1917 to 1918. You can also find this cultivator tractor
here at the museum.
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| 1917 International Cultivator |
The tractors that the International Harvester Company built would be add to their line agriculture equipment. The Mogul and Titan brands would be sold by McCormick dealers; the first of their many tractors was the Type C Mogul which was little more than a stationary engine on a tractor chassis, fitted with friction drive (one speed forward, one reverse). This first tractor was built between 1911 and 1914, around 862 Moguls were built.
In 1914 the dealer would see the new International Harvester
tractor the 8-16 h. p. single cylinder hopper cooled tractor. They called this
tractor a two plow it had a planetary gear it featured a single speed with a
single final chain drive with the differential mounted on the back axle. The
front wheels were steered by a rack and worm gear. It also featured a Wico oscillating
low tension magneto. The belt pulley was mounted on the flywheel and was operated
by a hand wheel clutch. Its speed was 400 r. p. m. and weight 5,000 lbs.; it
had a sale price of $675, f. o. b. from Chicago. The 8-16 were manufactured
from 1914 to 1917.
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| Single final chain drive with the differential mounted on the back axle. |
The many consider the first important tractors
to come from International Harvester were the model 10-20 and 15-30. They were
introduced in 1915 when the tractors went into production international
purposely made them smaller than their predecessors. The tractors primary use was
as traction engines to pull 2 bottom plows and they were also used for belt
work on threshing machines. Even though the 10-20 and
15-30 were different tractors they had similar qualities to their predecessor
the Mogul.
The 10-20 were a hopper-cooled
single cylinder, it also featured a two speed sliding gear transmission, a
single chain drive, and just like its predecessor the Moguls, it featured two
hand clutches one for the transmission and one for the hand wheel type for the
belt pulley.
Both the Mogul and the Titan are truly International
tractors several of these tractors were shipped to Europe with many of them
going to Great Britain just before the start of World War 1. The average prices
for the tractors were 580 pounds sterling or around 2,400 dollars American. These
tractors were instrumental as sodbusters in the tough English countryside. They
were also instrumental in coal and iron production as work horses. One tractor
could do the work of 10 men in one day and this would allow for more men on the
battle field during the war. Many of these tractors according to a friend of
mine in England are featured pieces in a few museums in England.
As you walk along the row of Farmall, International Harvester,
and McCormick-Deering, toward the back of the museum you will see the 1917 International
cultivator and right next to the first of the two Mogul is the revolutionary
International 8-16, even thought tractor was prone to problem it was one of the
first tractors to feature a 4 cylinder kerosene engine it had a ball bearing
crank shaft, effective air filter and sleeved engines the tractor was only
produced for two year before it was pulled from the market. Even thought the
tractor carries the International name it was built by the Mogul team, next to
the International sit the 1920 International Harvester 10-20 Titan and finally
the 1916 Mogul 8-16. So you have to stop in and take a look at these
revolutionary tractors.
Do you know what a 1917 International Mogul 10-20 in good running condition is worth?
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