TOO Many comedians on this forum today (Art & Dave!) Think I'll go out and do a little yard work, move two 850# concrete slabs with my loader on the Suuper H, SON & I will shoot some new white paint on a snow blade & the CC 70's hood, maybe even clear-coat it!
HARRY - I'm not really aware of any other IH plants that made hardware to the extent WP did.
I was an "Inter-works Material Scheduler" for about six months my last three yrs @ FARMALL, in other words, purchasing from other IH plants instead of outside suppliers, before I was moved over to the tire/wheel/rim/paint desk and also given a few other suppliers to keep me busy. All one girl did in that dept. was buy hardware, mostly from WP and a couple outside suppliers.
I dealt with E. Moline a lot(sheet metal and weldments), Canton, IL(heavy fabrications/weldments), Melrose Pk.(engines) Shadyside, OH (hood sheet metal for 2+2's) Memphis (Castings) Indy (More castings) Louisville had their own two people to deal with them, one handled machine finished parts, the other raw castings & forgings and steel from outside suppliers. I actually bought a drawbar "Hammer Strap" from IH Hinsdale Eng. center, also Harvester Press,(operators manuals).
There was the old tractor plant in Chicago, the McCormick-Deering Plant in Miwaukee, another binder plant in Rock Falls, IL. And of course the Ft. Wayne & Springfield, OH truck plants.
There's also been articles in Red Power about IH's coal mines in I think it was Virginia, the captive IH steel mill, Wisconsin Steel around Chicago/Gary, Indiana, IH also owned & operated logging & sawmill operations to make lumber used in some of their earliest equipment, and their two Iron Ore ships on the Great Lakes.
The way IH divided engine production up was Melrose Pk made the in-line engines, Indy made the V-8's. My PSD in my old pickup was PROUDLY made at IH's Indy plant! All developement & most testing was done in Melrose. IH also had a construction equip. plant in Libertyville, IL. A ductile iron foundry in Waukesha, WI. The Libertyville plant is now owned by Dresser, as is HALF of the Melrose plant because they also made crawler tractors.
There were also several plants in Canada, an assembly plant in Sautillio, Mexico, & Geelong, Australia. There was also a TWINE MILL for making binder & baler twine in New Orleans, another one in Chicago, and one in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Also had mills in Sweden, France, & Germany.
I could dig more IH plant info out of my books like that tid-bit about the twine mills, but IH was THE business model of Verticle Integration in the 1930's, 40's, & 50's. They controlled their product from raw material ore to finished product. And the company was truely INTERNATIONAL in scope. They had tractor plants in Doncaster, England, France, Nuess, Germany.
ANYHOW, the ONE person I really NEED to talk to someday, is Guy Fay. Many here recognize his name as the author of MANY books on IHC. He used to live about eight miles from me, He now lives in Janesville I think, about 30 miles away. We've exchanged e-mails a time or two. But I really want to sit down and discuss his reasearch of the IHC Archives at the Wis. Historical Library.
IH history lesson is over.... Continue kidding Rob about his extra bolt!.....
