The Caterpillar Model Thirty is a continuation of the Best model Thirty, which had been in production since 1921. The Thirty was produced from from 1925 to 1938. This Cat had a 461 Cubic Inch gasoline engine with a bore and stroke of 4.75 X 6.5 inches and produced 34 HP at the belt. Drawbar HP was apparently not tested. Instead, drawbar pull was tested and produced the number: 6,120 lbs.
The Thirty came with a two speed (with a single reverse) transmission, both of which were mighty slow by today's standards. Inching along, however, the Thirty could move a pretty fair amount of dirt. It was a vast improvement over the small horse drawn fresnos that created roads for decades before. This one still has its blade which, incidentally, was not standard equipment from the factory.
The documentation for this tractor states that it's a 1917 tractor, built in 1924. It is typical of the tractors that were used throughout the Creston Valley for many things, including ploughing farmers fields and building the dykes to reclaim the Creston flats from the annual floods of the Kootenay River. When it rolled off the assembly line, it was just a tractor; the blade and hydraulics were added later when it was used at a quarry north of Creston.
From the Creston Museum