THE MEASURING STICK OF THE TRACTOR
INDUSTRY©
PART VIII
"The Great Thousand Mile
Durability Run of 1915"
Dan Whalen 2277 Berry Road, Amelia, OH 45102
As printed in the Wild Harvest 2001
By today's standards a thousand mile durability run doesn't sound like all that big of a challenge for a piece of equipment let alone a tractor. Today we are accustomed to purchasing a tractor or any machinery and expect it to perform as the manufacture claims or we want to expect it to be corrected right now. But oh there was a time this was not the case, or should it be said situation. Henry Wallis called the other tractors "freak machines". 1915 the Nebraska Tractor tests didn't exist, it was truly a time of buyer beware.
The route taken in the great 1915 Durability Run was the Lincoln highway. March 23, 1913 a spring thaw and tremendous amount of rain caused a great flood. The canal systems in the Ohio area were all but destroyed. In retrospect never to bee rebuilt again. In 1915 public opinion was much in disfavor with the railroads. Transportation was in a state of change. Public opinion and consensus had not been formed as to what forms of transportation it would support, railroads, highways, or rebuild the canals.
The Federal Government was not involved with a road system. Bicycle and auto clubs, business and civic organizations were raising private donations to build a patchwork of roads, like the "Lincoln Highway" or the "A-P Highway" (Atlantic-Pacific Highway, which is now route U.S. 52.) It was hoped the Federal and State Governments would finish the roads by filling in the blanks. At best the surface of the highway would have been McAdamed. (A process of layers of crushed rock.) At worse the highway would have been a ride of way of one continuous mud hole.
Taking a map and following the progress of the departures and destinations one quickly discovers U.S. 6 conforms to the route taken rather than U.S. 30 generally thought to be the Lincoln Highway. The reason being in 1915 the Lincoln Highway was still in the infancy of development. U.S. 6 conforms to the 1915 alignment and U.S. 30 conforms more to the 1927 alignment.
What does all this have to do with the Great Durability Run? Just this; Henry Wallis was doing his civic duty of his day in promoting the Lincoln Highway by just mentioning it because it didn't exist as we think of a highway or road today. Which made using the Lincoln Highway in itself a challenge.
The start of the Great Thousand Mile Durability Run started at Cleveland, Oh. Why? In 1911 R.O. Hederickson and Oliver P. Conger set up shop at the Morgan Engineering Works in Alliance, Ohio. Here they built a new experimental tractor. In January of 1913 the Wallis Tractor Company relocated to Cleveland, Ohio. The tractor produced was the Wallis Cub. So it would be only natural to start from home base. As to why Hederickson and Conger located to the Cleveland area we can only leave up to speculation.
Fremont, Nebraska was the terminus of the Great Thousand Mile Durability Run of 1915. The 20th Century Farmer Magazine sponsored an annual tractor demonstration starting in 1913 at Fremont, Nebraska. In 1914 the Wallis Cub broke the world's plowing record at this same event. The National Power Farming Demonstration began August 9, 1915. The Wallis people were determined to break their own record again with the Wallis Cub.
H.M. Wallis, President of J.I. Case was known as a promoter who made a lot of noise. With the Wallis tractor he had a lot to be noisy about. June 20, 1915 Henry Wallis posed this question, "Why not drive a 'Cub' from Cleveland, Ohio to Fremont, Nebraska?" Within 24 hours a machine was taken from stock and the crew was on their way pulling a Mitchell Wagon built in Racine, Wisconsin.
Instructions were to average 30 miles a day and get the 'Cub' into Fremont in time for the National Power Demonstration beginning August 9th. This was the extent of preparation. The crew had to get going for no one knew what obstacles would have to be overcome. No one had ever attempted a durability run like this before. This trip was the equivalent to a year's work on the farm. The weather and road conditions were most unfavorable.
As it turned out, the Cub and Mitchell Wagon pulled into Fremont, Nebraska a week ahead of schedule, with no breakdowns. As an added plus was all the free publicity generated as the crew reached each destination.
As it turned out, the Cub broke its previous records by plowing three acres with a four-bottom plow in 77 minutes. The land being plowed had a depression half filled with water and the plows had to be dragged through it. The other "freak machines" filled their wet spot with straw and lifted their plows, the Wallis Cub did not!
Get out a map and follow the day-to-day experiences of the crew G.G. Schultze, George Strait, and William Murphy as they may each destination on the Lincoln Highway of time past.