By Linda Weiford, WSU News
PULLMAN, Wash. – She resembles a large prehistoric praying mantis, roaring and rattling across a dirt field while gleaming orange against a Palouse blue sky. Once covered in cobwebs and dust, she’s now fully restored and churning away at Washington State University’s Organic Farm.
Meet “Sweet Allis,” an Allis-Chalmers tractor built in 1949, back when Harry Truman was president, a loaf of bread cost 14 cents and 45 RPM records first hit the country’s store shelves. Bright orange Allis-Chalmers tractors were instantly recognizable then, just as John Deere’s kelly-green tractors with yellow wheels are today.
As a Model G, Sweet Allis is especially unique. From 1948 to 1955, only 30,000 such models were made in Gadsden, Ala., according to the Wessels Living History Farm, headquartered in York, Neb. (See http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/machines_04.html)
What’s more, the G’s engine is mounted not in front, like every other farm tractor old or new, but in back.
“With the engine (four-cylinder) in the back, you can more closely see what you’re working on in front of you. It really offers a bird’s-eye view,” said farm manager Brad Jaeckel. He purchased the antique tractor from a Potlatch, Idaho, logger who’d found it long abandoned at a job site, took it apart and had it rebuilt and freshly painted.
At WSU’s organic farm, Sweet Allis will cultivate weeds, hill potatoes and mark rows in the field to prepare for planting, said Jaeckel.
“She’s designed for hard work, dirty work. We’re glad to have her,” he said.
Each year, owners of this rare tractor gather in Alabama for the Allis-Chalmers Model G Roundup Show. Folks participate in tractor races and a heavy-wrench toss.
“The slowest tractor wins the race,” an article in the Gadsden Times reported.
Instead of racing at the roundup, WSU’s Sweet Allis will be chugging along at the farm, said Jaeckel: “There’s a lot to do out here. Her work is cut out for her.”