Russ' Vintage Iron

When I was growing up, most of the farmers in our area had red (IH) or green (JD) farm equipment, mainly because of nearby dealers. There were, however, a few farmers who had orange (AC), blue (Ford), a different shade of red (Massey Ferguson) and green (Oliver) on their farms.

As far as I can remember, there was only one area farmer who had farm equipment with the distinct Prairie Gold yellow color. For those of you not familiar with this color, I am talking about the Minneapolis-Moline farm equipment company.

I can remember driving by this farm and seeing the yellow tractors and equipment parked on the farm place. Every once in a while you would see the open-station tractors working in the fields.

The history of Minneapolis-Moline (MM) is fairly limited compared to other farm equipment manufacturers.

The company was formed in 1929 when three companies merged -- Minneapolis Steel & Machinery, Minneapolis Threshing Machine and Moline Plow, according to the website http://www.minneapolis-moline.com/…. By 1963, the company was acquired by the White Motor Company, which also bought Oliver and Cockshutt, and by the mid-1970s the MM name and the yellow tractors were gone.

Just because the company only manufactured equipment for 45 years doesn't mean they did not have an impact on farming and how farmers operated their farms.

In the beginning, the company began to produce tractors in two lines: one was the "Minneapolis" and the other was "Twin City" from 1929 to 1936. I have seen a few Twin City tractors and they were grey, not the familiar yellow most people associate with MM.

The company produced the Visionlined tractors in 1936. This was the first series to be fully developed, produced and marketed under the MM name. This was when the Prairie Gold first appeared on the series, which included the R, Z, U and G.

Probably the most well-known tractor for MM during this time was the UDLX Comfortractor in 1938. The company was a pioneer of cabs for farm tractors. This cab featured a heater, radio, windshield wipers and even a dashboard with a speedometer.

While the UDLX had poor sales due to the high cost, it was part of one of the most popular series for MM. These tractors were made from 1936 all the way to the mid to late 1950s.

In 1951, MM purchased the BF Avery Company, which produced smaller tractors. The company sold models V, BF and BG, which were Avery tractors painted in the Prairie Gold color scheme and sold as MMs.

In the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, MM produced the Powerline series (335, 445 & Five Star). With this series, MM changed its color to a Power Yellow, which is similar to the Prairie Gold but a shade darker, almost more orange than gold.

The Constellation Series tractor was released next in the early 1960s and with this series MM again changed shades of yellow. This time the company went from Power Yellow to Energy Yellow, which was more of an industrial yellow.

The G series was manufactured during the 1960s into the 1970s, and during this point of time, the White Motor company was producing tractors for MM, Oliver and Cockshutt with the only difference being the paint color, decals and grill.

From late 1960s into the 1970s, the Oliver 1555 was the same as the MM G-550 as well as the Cockshutt 1555. The same was true for the Oliver/Cockshutt 1655 (MM G-750), the 1755 (MM-850) and the 1855 (MM-940).

By 1969, the MM, Cockshutt and Oliver identities began to slowly disappear as White officially fully merged these companies into White Farm Equipment Company. In 1972, White began to sell tractors under the "White" name. By 1974/1975, the MM, Cockshutt and Oliver names and colors were no longer used.

Much like the history of MM, the history of this farm who used the yellow tractors in our area was fairly short-lived at least in my relatively short view of history.

This farm was in the path of Omaha's western development, and the land was eventually sold and developed into a large movie theater and apartments around 20 years ago. I know they had a farm equipment auction and all the yellow equipment was sold, but for some reason I didn't or couldn't attend.

Whenever I drive by this former farm in west Omaha, I think back to what was here before development. On this particular corner, I can see a farm place of old, weathered buildings and I also see vintage yellow equipment.

Russ Quinn can be reached at russ.quinn@dtn.com

(AG/CZ)

(JP/CZ)

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