By CINDY LADAGE

Illinois Correspondent

RACINE, Wis. — This is the year that J.I. Case Collectors celebrated the 175th anniversary of when Jerome Increase Case started the Racine Threshing Machine Works.

Louis Lewey, the national vice president of J.I. Case Collectors, said there are two organizations that celebrated this manufacturing anniversary. “The J.I. Case Heritage organization started in about 1986,” he said, begun mainly by ex-employees.

“Amongst them were those that liked steam and the older stuff and later items,” Lewey explained, “so they started the J.I. Case collectors organizations. Both organizations had this celebration in Albert City, Iowa. There were over 400 members there, some from Canada, some from England and, I believe, one from Australia.

“At that show there were over 450 tractors or steam engines and when you added the implements and all, over 500 J.I. Case units (were) there.”

Besides J.I. Case equipment, the celebration also included models from after the Case and Tenneco merger that happened in 1985. Collectors enjoyed watching the newer tractors plowing along beside the J.I. Case steam engines. The group had an appreciation banquet at member Colin Johnson’s farm.

“He cleaned out a turkey house and we had our banquet there with excess of 450 people,” Louis said. “Max Armstrong was the keynote speaker.”

The celebration was all about the Case story that began in the early 1840s. Lewey said Jerome Case had a blacksmith shop and was from New York. He had tried to invent a machine that would thresh wheat, an important product in the early 1800s when settlers were coming to the United States.

Case invented a machine that was hand-operated, called the Ground Hog. “Before that, farmers were threshing like they did back in Biblical times, threshing on the floor,” Lewey said. “Neighbors thought it was a great idea, so he decided to come to the West, which then was Wisconsin, and sell five of those machines that he made.

“They became very well known and he expanded from there and made items between the Ground Hog and the threshing machine. Others were also doing the same thing. The threshing machines were all made of wood.”

Case at this point was the manufacturer, the salesman and the whole shebang. “He had sold one in Minnesota,” Lewey noted, “and they were having problems. He went out to help and he couldn’t make it work, so he asked for a can of kerosene and burned it down. He said if he couldn’t make it work he wouldn’t have his name on it.”

According to him, this event prompted Case to create a steel threshing machine. At first farmers thought it would shake apart, but it proved to be quite sturdy and workable. The steel machines became quite famous and others started building them as well.

“That’s how he got into the steam engine business. At first they were horse-drawn and then they went with threshing machine, so it was a natural fit,” Lewey said.

Case built the mobile threshing machines all the way to the largest, at 150 hp. He also built one with flat rollers that became popular with road builders. “The bottom line,” he said, “is J.I. Case produced more steam engines than the rest of the steam engine companies together.”

The evolution of the Case machines continued. According to Case IH Agriculture, Jerome Case founded the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Co. in 1842 in Racine. In 1984, the business merged with the agricultural equipment division of International Harvester to form Case IH, before J.I. Case became a publicly-owned entity, Case Corp., in 1994.

Fiat acquired Case and the Case IH brand in 1999 and formed CHN, which later became CHN Industrial. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the first Magnum tractors, the latest generation of which are still built in Racine.

Lewey has personal experience with the company. He started started working for a Case dealer in 1960 for nine years until he moved to the J.I. Case Co. as a salesman in Taylorville, Ill., then a store manager in Lincoln. He wanted a new challenge so he was sent to Janesville, Wis., where he ran the store for three years.

“In the 1970s J.I. Case was trying to find dealers, but it cost a lot to have dealers so they started company-owned stores,” he said. “By 1985, there were 180 company-owned stores in North America and several in Canada.”

After Janesville, Lewey moved on to Hutchison, Kan. “People were very faithful and accepting of the J.I. Case product. Then, the popular thing was to have a store complex. I wanted that, and the Columbia, Missouri, complex became available.

“J.I. Case wanted managers with MBAs in management; I didn’t have that, but had 10 years those MBA guys didn’t have. They would hire these guys from Sears, et cetera, but they weren’t very well versed in farming and trading.”

He said he was soon trained to hire and organize. He helped stores that were in trouble and ran the Columbia branch until 1983. He moved to California and ran a store in the San Joaquin Valley until Case merged with Harvester, after which he went on to work for Fiat Allis and Deere & Co. before retirement – but he still has a soft spot for Case IH.

“I find it amazing to see just how far the farming industry and our company have come during the last 175 years, especially given the fact that we are stronger today than ever before,” Case IH President Andreas Klauser said back in February. “I am certain that if Mr. Case could see the company today, he would instantly recognize that the core values that he championed all those years ago are still at the heart of everything we do.

“When I look at the enormous transformation that has taken place in agriculture over the last 175 years, it is very exciting to think about what might be achieved during the next 175 years.”

Learn more at www.caseih.com/northamerica/en-us