Cletrac Tractor
Model H (1917-1919)
Thomas White
White Sewing Machine Co.
The history of “Cletrac” began in the United States, in 1858, when Thomas H. White together with his five children founded a company called White Sewing Machine Company in Templeton, Massachusetts, In 1866, the company moved to Cleveland, Ohio. The company also produced bicycles and were assembling 10,000 bicycles a year in 1899.
White Motor Company
In 1900, Thomas White's son, Rollin, developed a steam engine. He used a corner of one of his father's factories to start building automobiles. In 1906, the automotive venture was spun off as its own company, the White Motor Company.
Cleveland Motor Plow Company
·In 1912, two of White’s sons, Clarence and Rollin, founded the Cleveland Motor Plow Company, to design and build a revolutionary motor plow for those times. Production was limited to a few prototypes and a few pre-series.
In 1914, Rollin decided to mechanize a pineapple plantation owned by a brother in Hawaii. He thought of a compact vehicle, capable of moving between narrow crop rows, that wouldn’t sink into wet soil. Rollin’s small caterpillar tractor saw the light in 1916 with the Cleveland brand and the initials “R”. It was considered one of the first compact crawlers in history.
Cleveland Tractor Company
·To mass produce the crawler, the Cleveland Tractor Company was founded. The machine was put on the market at a price of $1,185. In 1917, Rollin pushed the company to update the tractor giving life to the “H” model, very similar to the “R” but a little heavier and powered by a 20 horsepower four-cylinder Weidley engine.
The Model “H” also inaugurated the Cletrac brand, an abbreviation of Cleveland Tractor.
