[AT] Pellet/corn stove - and related Tractor

[Chuck Bealke]

Dean,

Since you mentioned Lennox, I thought I would add a little trivia I learned when working at their largest plant in Marshalltown, Iowa, in the fall.  Lennox once made a little air-cooled crawler tractor called a Kitty-Trac.  It was a short lived marketing failure, kind of a cute toy that did not work out very well for design and market reasons. For instance, they distributed it through their furnace dealers, it was too light for serious work and had some other operating weaknesses. But it was and is cute and collectible. Excuse me if you knew all this, but it's funny how machines sometimes have distant relatives with a colorful past - kinda like people. Have some K-T pictures I took around here somewhere, but they seem to be hiding from me. As I recall, the pulleys and some other parts in the K_T were taken from  the furnace part stocks. The unit was made in Des Moines in what is now a  parts distribution center.

I was in Marshalltown for about a month (on a Sarbanes-Oxley audit contract), and really enjoyed the area and the super folks at the plant. From what I saw, they make fine ACs and furnaces.


_|___\  __   
|_____/    \  ~ Chuck Bealke ~ bealke at airmail.net ~ 
( )       \__/             http://www.plowsong.com



On 01/22/2005 at 9:34 PM Dean VP wrote:

>Walt:
>
>I think, if you check, you will find that the Whitfield stove was made in
>NW
>WA, Arlington or Marysville, WA I believe. That is close enough for me to
>call home. I think the original manufacturing facility was called Lopi or
>something like that. Whitfield has since been bought out by one of the
>major
>furnace manufacturers, Lennox. Not what I would call a run of the mill, fly
>by night garage shop. 
>