County of equipment: Lincoln County
Loction of equipment: Elm St., Old Monroe
Manufacturer: Galion
Model Number: 14
Approx. date made: 1930's
"Galion Iron Works is the name of the company that built the Galion brand of construction equipment. World famous for their graders that shaped the roads of the world, a saying emerged that "All roads lead to Galion." They also manufactured rollers, cranes, asphalt millers and even riding squeegees among other machines.
"The Galion Iron Works Company of Galion, Ohio, was founded by David Charles Boyd and his three brothers in 1907. In its early years, the Galion name appeared on a wide range of road-building and other construction equipment, such as drag scrapers, plows, wagons, stone unloaders, rock crushers, and a variety of other "experimental machines". By 1911, Galion had begun production of a light-duty, horse-drawn road grader.
"The company's success and product diversification brought about its reorganization in 1923, and a change of the name to Galion Iron Works and Manufacturing Company. The "Light Premier" was an early grader produced in 1915. It was billed as light enough for two horses, but strong enough for four. Its blade could be raised, lowered, angled, tilted, and shifted sideways, just like the blade movements on a modern grader.
Galion was famous for its huge pull-type graders, some of the largest ever built, designed to be pulled behind the largest tractors available. The No 14 shown here is equipped with scarifier, steerable tongue, 14-foot blade and hand-operated controls. This heavy-duty piece of iron tipped the scales at 15,000 pounds.
"Galion was famous for building some of the largest pull-type graders in the industry. Popular throughout the 1920s and 1930s, these huge machines were pulled by the largest traction engines and crawler tractors available. These graders outperformed other motor graders of the day. Galion continued selling its pull-type graders until 1945, long after other manufacturers discontinued pull-type graders." ~ Wikipedia