Cletrac Facts

The Be-Ge Company Enhances the Oliver Crawler Line
By Landis Zimmerman

Farming in California is much different from anything we know about in the east of the Midwest. One of the biggest differences is the fact that in certain parts of California, everything needed to be irrigated if you expected to harvest a crop. Ditch irrigation was the most common way to get water to the right place in the fields. This required a completely level field for best and consistent results. After the leveling process was completed, irrigation ditches were laid out and dug.

The Be-Ge Company of Gilroy, CA built a complete line of earthmoving machinery to perform these tasks from start to finish for the California farmers and ranchers.

When the Oliver Farm Equipment Company bought the Cleveland Tractor Company in 1944, they added a fine line of proven crawler tractors to their extensive line of agricultural and industrial equipment. While Cletrac built a fine line of crawler tractors, they never built any equipment in-house for them. Even though the Oliver name appeared on their loader and dozer units, they were built by other companies such as A.C. Anderson, Heil Road Machinery and Ware Machine Works to name a few.

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