Lou Buice is helping preserve examples of early 20th-century farm technology through his family’s hobby of restoring and maintaining some of the oldest farm tractors ever built.

In a large metal building outside McGregor, Buice keeps the collection of more than 15 tractors, some exquisitely restored, some awaiting restoration, and some in the process.

There are International Harvesters and Cases, but others are under long-gone names obscure to most people except tractor collectors: Rumely, Hart Parr, Avery, Heider.

Lou Buice with his collection of restored tractors, including a rare 1914 Hart Parr (left) and a 1927 Rumely Oil Pull.
Duane A. Laverty/Tribune-Herald

Compared to today’s key-started diesel machines with air conditioning, some of Buice’s machines are hardly recognizable in form or operation as tractors.

Dating from 1911 to 1928, they range in size from the size of a family car to a 26,000-pound E-Rumely Oil Pull, with nearly 7-foot-diameter steel rear wheels.

The collection includes one Case steam tractor awaiting restoration behind the building, as well.

Innovation

Buice, a member of the Texas Early Tractor and Engine Association, said the collection shows what was happening during a period of innovation as horse-drawn plows finally gave way to the tractor. The tractor greatly multiplied the amount of work farmers could do, he said.

Through 21st-century eyes, the machines still look like a lot of work themselves.

Many started on gasoline and switched to kerosene to run and sport broad wooden canopies to protect the operators from the elements.

One tractor in Buice’s collection used seven carburetors: one for gasoline because the tractor used gasoline to start before continuing on kerosene.

Two more carburetors circulated cooling water around the cylinder head, and four others were for the kerosene fuel.

These machines have to be crank-started, Buice said, and the small tractors have hand cranks. The larger ones have giant flywheels, and on some, such as his 1911 International Harvester Titan 25, it takes two adults to turn the wheel to start it. The wheels weight 800 pounds each, and one person can barely budge the wheels.

Much of his collection, such as the Rumely Oil Pulls, have engines cooled with a light motor oil in a large, square radiator, instead of water. The motors turned much slower and the huge flywheels kept the machines operating between piston firings.

Buice, 53, said he’s fascinated by the different approaches that were being taken to mechanical designs at the time. He said one model, an Avery, moves the whole engine a few inches as part of the process of moving it into reverse gear.

Some tractors in the collection, such as a 1919 Heider and the Avery, used a friction drive arrangement with wheels rubbing together to move the tractor instead of gears, he said. The entire engine on the Heider also moved, but that was to regulate speed rather than to move in and out of reverse.

The pace of development can also be seen in the tractors, with tractors becoming much smaller but with the same power in just a few years.

The period Buice deals with brackets World War I, which spurred tractor development both economically and technologically, said Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, professor and chair of the history department at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.

Change in technology

As the 19th century clicked over to the 20th, steam-powered tractors were available, but they were heavier and more unwieldy. Until internal combustion appeared in tractors just before the war, most farmers stayed with animal-powered plows, she aid.

In the few years before the war, tractors were much more experimental, she said.

A Hart-Parr oil tractor belonging to Lou Buice goes on display at a local event.
Lou Buice photo

During the war, technical advances from the development of war machinery such as tanks were incorporated into tractor technology.

For instance, in some cases caterpillar tracks instead of wheels were used on tractors, she said. Also, wheat was needed to feed troops, and that affected wheat prices, she said. The upward pressure on wheat prices meant more income and buying power for farmers, she said.

“Prices were going up significantly — farmers bought tractors and new land,” she said.

The splurge came to an end as the war ended, dropping prices. Some farmers found themselves badly in debt from the purchases, she said.

Automobiles also were developing rapidly during the early 20th century, and those advances were transferred to farm tractors, she said.

“Anything with an internal combustion engine is going to be significantly impacted at that time,” she said.

Family tradition

The collection is an extension of Buice family heritage in McLennan County. Buice is a businessman who owns Golden Acres Genetics, a seed supplier that develops hybrid corn and sorghum seed. He is married to Regina Buice, and his two sons, J.T. and Ty Buice, help him on the restorations.

Buice’s grandfather, L.E. Buice, farmed around Speegleville and ran a cotton gin until being killed in a gin accident in 1959.

One of the tractors in the collection is a 1928 Hart-Parr model that his grandfather bought. That tractor didn’t mark the beginning of the collection, though, Buice said. His father, Calvin Buice, now 84, began the collection with the purchase of a tractor in the 1960s, Buice said.

The collection has just grown from there through the years. Buice avoids discussing purchase prices on the machines.

Finding parts

The tractors and their parts come from varied sources. To get the parts, there are networks of enthusiasts to trade or purchase parts through, he said.

Obtaining parts can take more than a phone call, though. Buice recalled one trip to Voltaire, N.D., to find a man known in tractor circles as “Rumely Bill” Krumwiede to obtain cylinders and pistons for one tractor. It took hours to extract the parts from another tractor.

The tractors often have to be extensively rebuilt with engines that haven’t run in decades and rust covering most surfaces.

Buice said as long as he is physically able, he will work on the tractors. He said he always gets a kick out of taking something in bad shape and getting it running, especially when it’s a piece of farm history.

“Here’s something that’s been sitting for 40 or 50 years, and to get it running again is really exciting,” Buice said.

bteeter@wacotrib.com

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