Oliver Museum-Charles City Iowa

       Well,  the tractors were just like I recalled. Some of the older ones showed the influence of the 18-36 Hart Parr owned by the Gingerich family. It started on gasoline but ran on kerosene.It was later changed to gasoline only.  They didn't have that exact model on display.

                                                      An early Hart Parr model:

Later Mr. Hart and Mr. Parr purchased the Oliver Chilled Plow Mfg. Co. from near Goshen Indiana. The production continued there, and the very unique design became the easiest pulling plow made and are still desirable.  They then changed the company name to Oliver for all their products. 

Some of these early models were quite massive, perhaps in the style of the steam engines which were also used on farms.  

The modern models are cutting edge with shift-on-the-go introduction in the later 1960's and still working on many many farms still today.

The Oliver family included outboard motors, washing machines and other products.  Some of them never became popular like the farm machinery. The company slogan was 

"The Finest in Farm Machinery"