[AT] When did tractor pulls become prevalent?

Indiana Robinson robinson46176 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 20 22:06:50 PST 2019


I started watching tractor pulls about 1953 or 1954...
I never saw horse pulls here at all. When tractors fully replaced horses
here mostly by about 1945 - 1946, the horses pretty much went away.
The tractors I saw pulling were pulling a dead sled in a muddy lot at
county fairs. Back then most of the pullers were tractor dealers and rules
were pretty loose.  Tractors like Fords, Fergusons and Allis didn't usually
do too well since their big work advantage was due to the hydraulics.
Tractors like Deere 60's, Farmall M's and Oliver 88's tended to prevail. At
first they didn't seem to have classes and a TO-20 Ferguson might end up
pulling against a tractor at nearly double its weight, with 50% more HP and
double the amount of rubber on the ground.
At the local fairgrounds they decided to pour a large concrete slab to pull
on and it almost did in the pulling. Dealers pulling new tractors and most
farmers refused to pull on it because it literally ate the tires down
visibly in one or two pulls. They then went back to dirt. It was some time
before the progressive sleds took over.


.

On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 12:28 AM Spencer Yost <spencer at rdfarms.com> wrote:

> When I was a kid, the small local fairs that I went to all had horse
> pulls. I never saw tractor pulls.  This was on 1960s.  One fair in
> particular I can still see in my mind’s eye quite clearly.  It’s damn
> impressive to see a team of Belgians(Belgian is my memory anyways) go at a
> nearly immovable object.  A front loader/bucket would show up, and put
> weight on the sled,  eliminating teams until one was left.  My memory is of
> two horse teams.
>
> I would normally suspect my experience was slanted toward Amish as I was
> born and  raised in my formative years in Pennsylvania; but we didn’t have
> a lot of Amish communities as I was on the western side of the state, not
> towards the middle (ie Lancaster).  Even so,  it was after a my father’s
> job relocation to Georgia as a 12 year old before I ever saw a tractor pull.
>
> I’m sure they were around much earlier than that, and my recollection is
> probably tainted by sampling bias (which fair’s my family took me,
> geography, etc).
>
> When did tractor pulls supplant horse pulls in your area?
>
> Spencer Yost
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-- 
-- 

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com
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