1913 Case 18 HP Steam Engine Tractor

 This steam engine tractor (engine #30311), sometimes called a steam engine or steam traction engine, was made by the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company in Racine, Wisconsin. As with the other steam engine tractors in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this Case was probably used to power a threshing machine and may also have been used to pull gang plows. During the threshing season, the owner of this steam engine would have driven it from farm to farm in the area around his own stead, pulling a threshing machine behind. He and the other farmers would have then attached the engine to the thresher with a long belt. As the steam engine ran, its belt wheel would turn. That wheel would turn the belt which would then turn the belt wheel on the thresher. The thresher's belt wheel, with the aide of gears, turned the other moving parts of the thresher. The belt was made long in order to keep the engine away from the thresher, preventing heat and sparks created by the engine from igniting the straw from the thresher.
 If you look closely at the front of this steam engine, you will see the Case company's logo, the eagle. That eagle is based on a real-life eagle, Old Abe the Eagle, the nationally celebrated mascot of the 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. Old Abe, who lived from 1861 to 1881, was brought by the Wisconsin regiment to several battlefields during the last three years of the war. You can find the image of Old Abe on machines and individual parts made by J. I. Case from 1865 to 1969.

In the center of this photo is a Buller coupler.

 On the front and rear of this steam engine tractor are couplers for hitching made by the Buller Coupler Company of Hillsboro, Kansas. This company was created by Jacob Wiens Buller, an inventive man who acquired several coupler patents throughout the early 20th century. After starting his family in Jansen, Nebraska, Buller eventually moved his family to Hillsboro, Kansas, in 1909. By 1912, Buller was manufacturing a variety of couplers. Within a few years, with the large demand for his products, Buller moved his company into a larger brick facility. For the next several decades, the Buller Coupler Company manufactured couplers for steam engines, automobiles, tractors, mining cars, trailers, wagons, and hay loaders. Jacob Buller died in 1946, but his family kept the business until selling it in 1966.

Notes

One 19th century source for information on Old Abe is J. O. Barrett. The Soldier Bird. "Old Abe:" The Live War-Eagle of Wisconsin, That Served a Three Years' Campaign in the Great Rebellion. 4th Edition. Madison, WI: Atwood & Culver, Publishers, 1876.
An informative article on Buller and the Buller Coupler Company, published by the Hillsboro Star-Journal, can be found here.