[AT] Farm tractor dealerships

[James Peck]

I drove by the former Ferguson dealership we dealt with across from a drive-in movie theatre about 20 miles east of Cleveland last evening.  It was formerly owned by the grandfather of someone I went to school with. I remember the grandfather coming by and selling us some Lynch pins. It appeared to a repair facility only. I had actually seen ferguson ads on the movie screen 60 years ago.  Massey Ferguson had downgraded the dealership to suburban and lawn in the eighties.

The area is mostly suburban sprawl with only a little part time farming.

Another MF dealership about 10 miles south I member as small in 1961, has only an unused building remaining.


The baseball diamond next to the former elementary school I attended is now grassed over and the dirt road closed into one lane. That was where I saw my very first horse pull.

[Indiana Robinson] James' mention of the Oliver models got  me thinking (again) about the numerous dealerships we used to have in my county (Shelby County Indiana). We are not a big county, 17 miles by 24 miles, still mostly rural.
In my period of reasonable memory (late 1940's through the 1950's and at least part of the 1960's we had quite a few tractor dealerships. Several were fairly large and progressive and quite a few more were car and truck repair garages that had a few new tractors on display and could get you about anything you needed fairly quickly through the dealer network. Most had a decent supply of common parts and had access to other parts if needed.
I'll probably miss somebody but I recall:
One progressive John Deere dealer
Two  progressive IHC dealers
One progressive Allis Chalmers dealer
One progressive Minneapolis Moline
One repair garage type Minneapolis Moline dealer
One progressive Oliver dealer (actually the father of one of my sons-in-law)
One repair garage type Oliver dealer
One progressive Case dealer who later shifted to Massey Ferguson
One progressive Ford dealer
One Ford dealer who was also a Ford car dealership
One repair garage type Ford dealer.
One progressive Ferguson dealer
One progressive Co-op dealer
The Custom tractor factory used to be here and they sold some direct
Co-op used to have a factory here but only produced implements
There were a few others just outside of the county lines, one was Silver King. I always liked Silver Kings...
Then for many years there were no new tractor dealers here at all... The closest we have is that about last month the local Rural King farm store brought in maybe ten new tractors made by ??? I believe they are branded as "RK" ???

The division between what I call "progressive dealers" and "repair garage type" dealers is at best a fuzzy line but I think most can understand the attempted  division.  :-)  Most of the garage type were scattered around in various villages around the county
I believe that all of them were in business all through the 1950's except for the Custom and Silver King who ceased production.
The Ford car / truck / tractor dealership did well on cars and trucks but was almost a hidden dealer on tractor stuff after the 8Ns. There were common reports of a lot of shaky dealing there on farm stuff during WW-II. Supplies were short but money talked...
I have always thought of the 1950's as kind of the golden years...


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Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com<mailto:robinson46176 at gmail.com>







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