I rode a D7 through a small bridge once. Bridge should have been OK, but posts were dry rotted, just a shell of a timber left. Anyway, the county roadmaster was talking capital crime until I pointed out that if the D7 broke through, the truck that would have been hauling it would have broken through just as surely with the weight on less than half the footprint, and he'd have had 90 gallons of diesel from the truck tanks in the creek to explain. After that, they started inspecting bridges and posting limits!

The Paso Robles Pioneer Day has a early large gas engine prairie plowing tractor ( Twin City I think) that lived its whole in the central California coastal area. I was told the operator got it stuck and they gathered all the handy horses and mules and hocked them to it. Thought it might help if they started the tractor. Tractor backfired, the teams took off and tractor came out of the hole. I was told this more than once but it may just a good story or it maybe true. Because the early combine would run 40 or more horse they had all the harness componentes to hook that many to a tractor.

McLean County, IL, 1945
Osage Orange hedge rows
Leslie Moore pulls hedge fence in Dry Grove Township with Caterpillar tractor
 
  
 

McLean County, IL, 1945
Osage Orange hedge rows
Leslie Moore pulls hedge fence in Dry Grove Township with Caterpillar tractor
 

 

Corn husking, McLean County, IL, 1945
11-26-1945

That D4 in the above picture is explaining why so many of the Thirty and Sixty Cats here in the rice country did not have full fenders if any!
Add some 4x6 blocks to the track plates for the mud, left no room for fenders!
Cts

Corn stalks with the mud, Ha!, reminds me of the job disking cattails and getting mud and cattails packed in the track frames, what a PIA to clean out!!!!!!!!!!! Have to sharpen the end of the spade.

Holt Combine --
Those "old timers" had it pretty tough - no A/C, Stereo, Computer tattle tales, bulk tanks, etc.
At least the farmer could repair his own equipment!

I have no idea what the disposition of the equipment that was displayed at the Ponderosa Ranch -  (Bonanza TV Show), Incline Village, Nevada
There was a "split head" Thirty there too.
cts