Oliver Heritage Issue #118

OLIVER HERITAGE ISSUE #118 Dec/Jan 2024

• Featuring: Oliver 1900 C. Plow big or go home! The 1800 and 1900 were introduced to dealers in December 1959. The 1800 was designed to be the “farmhand” on the farm, but the 1900 was built for heavy tillage work in the growing fields of the 1960s. Feature tractor owner: Lynn Johnson – Elkhart, IL. 

• Restored Oliver 770 LP Orchard: Ethan Lulich of Lyndon Station, WI, knew this tractor deserved the time and attention that would honor where it had been… and where it still may go. 

• Oliver Dealer Advisory Council: Always ahead of its time, the management of Oliver decided to give its dealers a voice in the industry. Who better to tell a company what to build than the dealers who interact with the end user? 

• Oliver-Cletrac HG Allied Equipment: The Cleveland Tractor Company did not build any mounted equipment for the crawler tractor line, as they had good working relations with independent allied equipment builders. 

• Early Pioneers of the Oliver Plow: It was on June 30, 1857, when James Oliver applied for his first of many patents. That patent was for the process of chilling the wear face of cast-iron moldboard plows.   

• Oliver Lift Wagon: What’s a farm without a wagon? Whether it is a flatbed wagon, box wagon, or even a milk cart, there’s at least one on every farm. Even Oliver Chilled Plow Works, manufacturer of PLOWS, offered wagons to their customers.  

• Here comes the BOSS: Even though White Motors entered the picture in 1960, they left the Oliver Corporation alone for the most part. Things were changing by the early-’70s, however, and the White name started showing up on equipment in 1973. Then came a White Farm Equipment sign with the tag line, “A sign of things to come.” By 1975, “White is up to something.” And, were they ever! 

• Jim Maass: Another Oliver User. “Although there were lots of different tractor brands used in our neighborhood, we always had Olivers on our farm.”