By CINDY LADAGE
Wrenching Tales 

Historic Days at Penfield, Ill., last year brought together an array of tractors, and one of the coolest was Jerry Long’s and his girlfriend, Pam’s, beautiful Saukville tractors.

Jerry and Pam live in Manteno, Ill., and Jerry once worked for an Allis Chalmers tractor dealer. This AC association made him jump when he had a chance to buy the Saukville tractor that is based on the AC G. "I have three tractors like the AC G," Jerry said, "the Saukville, John Blue and a Hefty G.

"They quit making the Allis Chalmers G in the late 1950s. I had an Allis Chalmers G first and I restored it when my daughter was six. She started driving it like a go-cart."

Historical research shows the Saukville Tractor was organized in Wisconsin circa 1993. The late Don Teskor was one of the founders of the tractor, and they were built at his plant, Teskor Manufacturing Corp., under the name Saukville Tractor Corp. The company confirmed the tractors were built there but said Teskor would have been the one with details about the machines.

What is interesting is although this tractor is a derivative of the AC G, Teskor was a John Deere collector. The Saukville was a cultivating tractor that was offered with a canopy top basket weeder and wheel sweep. The tractor also was used in conjunction with several attachments, such as a 16-disc harrow, two-row cultivator, basket weeder, hydro roto-tiller, transplanter, single-bottom plow and grader blade and rake. The tractor sold for about $15,000 new.

"They made about 65, I think," Jerry said. "My tractor came from the Illinois side down by St. Louis and the guy used it for cultivating strawberries. It has a three-point hitch in front and in back."

Jerry has a brochure on the Saukville tractor that states it had three engine choices: a 20-hp air-cooled gasoline Kohler Command Twin V or the same in a 25-hp version, as well as a 23.5-liter-hp liquid-cooled three-cylinder diesel John Deere (Yanmar) engine. The tractor weighed around 2,500 pounds and has a ground clearance of just under 20 inches.

Over the years Jerry has tracked the Saukville tractors and knows the location of 32 of them. "Most are in the New Jersey and New York areas because of the vegetable farming and vineyards and fruit farms. Some were in the California area and others were scattered around. Some of the Saukvilles went to university field trails and test plots," he explained.

The reason the tractors didn’t sell well? "The problem was the pricing. It was so high because they were handmade and you could buy Kubota, et cetera, much cheaper."

Besides the Saukville, Jerry has a John Blue tractor built by the John Blue Co. in Huntsville, Ala. The company made pumps for agricultural and industrial operations, fertilizer spreaders, cotton wagons and small tractors. It was at its height in the 1970s and had branches in five other states, including Maryland, Illinois and Texas.

The company is named after its founder, John Blue, who was born in November 1861. Blue was a cotton farmer who patented a stalk cutter in 1891. He also developed a one-horse fertilizer spreader, patented in 1893. The John Blue Co. was formed in Laurinburg, S.C., in 1886 by Blue and his father, Angus. It began as a business to repair cotton gin parts and other farm equipment.

John Blue Jr. moved the company to Huntsville in the mid-1940s, after Blue’s foundry in North Carolina burned. It was at the Huntsville plant the John Blue tractor was built, around 1975-76.

At Huntsville it also built cotton wagons, self-propelled and pull-type sprayers and applicators for anhydrous ammonia. In 2000, John Blue merged with CDS Ag Industries, Inc. and today CDS-John Blue manufactures pumps and other components for liquid fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, as well as irrigation systems.

Besides the Saukville and Blue, Jerry also has a Hefty G. The Hefty G was developed by the Holtan Axle and Transmission Co. in Juneau, Wis., in the 1970s. The Hefty G was a super version of the G with a 3-point hitch at the rear and another in front of the engine block. Like the Saukville and Blue tractors, the Hefty G was made primarily for cultivating and spraying.

The G versions all have their own history and stories, and Jerry and Pam had fun showing them off at Penfield last year and enjoy having people stop and ask, "What is that?"

Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication.