[AT] When did tractor pulls become prevalent?

[Roger Moffat]

Here’s a souped up tractor against a traction engine in New Zealand 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bYTtcot1fM

> On Jan 21, 2019, at 12:37 PM, Alan Riley <arr44 at suddenlink.net> wrote:
> 
> The first tractor pull I saw was at a circus (not a fair) in the early 1950s.  It pitted a Ford 8N against an elephant.  Boy, I was a mad kid when the elephant started dragging the 8N backwards!
> 
> 
> On 1/21/2019 12:06 AM, Indiana Robinson wrote:
>> 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.
>> 
>> 
>> .
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>> On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 12:28 AM Spencer Yost <spencer at rdfarms.com <mailto: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 <mailto:robinson46176 at gmail.com>
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