Allis-Chalmers WC on a pole - Eastville, MO
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 38° 57.171 W 092° 02.971
15S E 582359 N 4311973
Eastville no longer exists, but it was here...5 miles W. of Kingdom City
Waymark Code: WMZ38M
Location: Missouri, United States
Date Posted: 09/04/2018
Views: 3
County of tractor:Callaway County
Loction of tractor: High on a pole at Wise Brothers Equipment, Old US 40, Kingdom City
This is, I believe a 1944 WC, and I know it is an Allis-Chalmers tractor.
Wise Brothers has had gas stations here (on old US-40) and a Plymouth dealership and an Allis-Chalmers dealership...mainly sell used farm equipment today...and of course farm a pile of land around here.
"Certainly Allis-Chalmer’s purchase of Advance-Rumely in 1931 put that company on the map as a major manufacturer of farm equipment.
"But Allis lacked a modern tractor to match the times. IHC had introduced their revolutionary Farmall in 1924 establishing the row-crop tractor as the future of horsepower.
"The fixed front axle fleet Allis was sending to their dealers was losing ground to the Farmall. Management in Milwaukee – home base for Allis-Chalmers – was demanding a machine to put them back into the market.
"Enter corporate wonderkind Harry Merritt. Busting at the seams with creative concepts and bound-and-determined to make Allis-Chalmers a major player in farm equipment, Merritt energized the engineering abilities of Walter Strehlow, commissioning him to create a Persian Orange row-crop. Possibly borrowing from the design of Rumely’s unique DoAll tractor, Strehlow fashioned a machine that would not only become the most popular Allis ever built but which established Allis as a competitor to the likes of Ford, IHC, Deere, Minneapolis-Moline and Oliver.
"However, Strehlow’s brainchild, the Model WC, faced enormous competition when it was introduced in 1933. Agriculture was struggling with the Great Depression. And the market was quickly filling with other row-crop competition. This is when Merritt’s energies came into play. He had been fascinated with the potential of tires in agriculture. Three years before the WC’s debut, Merritt had commissioned Allis engineers to test the concept on a Model U. To dispell skepticism about tire performance in the field, Merritt took the concept on the road in plowing competitions.
"To lure farmers’ attention toward rubber, Merritt employed the high-speed antics of race car legend Barney Oldfield speeding a rubber-clad Model U around a dirt track at state fairs." ~ Successful Farming