If you compare Oliver and Cockshutt, you will find numerous similarities. These 2 companies mirrored each other throughout their years of production and it is ironic that both companies were bought up by the same corporation and molded into one, eventually suffering the same demise.

When the Oliver Chilled Plow Works merged with Nichols & Shepard in 1929, the Battle Creek company had already been in the harvesting equipment business since 1848. But the well-known manufacturer had been in business for over 100 years before they would ever produce a self-propelled combine.

This series of articles will have excepts from my interview with former Oliver President - Sam White, Jr. Rather than put it in story form, these are his words just as they were told to me.

Located just north of Interstate 70 on HWY 13 (Exit 49) in Higginsville, Missouri is an AGCO dealership that has stood the test of time. It was 1946 when the Vahrenberg family acquired a business that would soon turn into an Oliver dealership that still thrives today as one of the top volume dealerships in North America.

Who is Sam White, Jr.? If you've ever been to a “Growing O” show or been involved with Oliver as a dealer, you're sure to have encountered Sam White at one time or another. And if you did meet him, you most certainly couldn't forget him.

When Oliver first began supplying hay tools to the farmer in the teens, they were not of the Oliver manufacture. Thomas Hay tools were built by the Thomas Manufacturing Co. of Springfield, OH. They provide Oliver with the Thomas Crown mower, a side delivery rake, a tedder, hay loader and even a line of grain drills. The picture shows what the Thomas mower looked like, but it can also be identified by the “B” prefix on all the parts cast on it.

The American Farm Heritage Museum, Greenville, Illinois

It's not uncommon for a group of enthusiast to pull together an have a tractor show, but a group a Southern Illinois folks have much bigger dreams.

By: Landis Zimmerman

Behind every successful venture there is an interesting beginning. Cletrac had a beginning which may be a surprise to many of you.

In the last few years, there have been a few horse-drawn buggies appear at Oliver shows with a tag identifying them as “Built For The Oliver Chilled Plow Works”. Most people have never heard of Sechler but what follows is story about a very successful company that built several different products for Oliver and eventually sold part of the line to the American Seeding Machine Company which later came back to the hands of Oliver.