Rare tractor being restored at Pioneer Acres

A century old tractor being restored in Calgary A vintage tractor over 100 years old is being restored. Kevin Fleming reports.

IRRICANA, Alta. — It's a massive machine that farmers started using in 1913 while many of their neighbours were working their fields with a horse drawn plow. The Pioneer 30-60 was the invention of E. M. Wheelock who designed and built his tractors at a plant in Calgary.

Shelly McElroy is the curator of Pioneer Acres just outside of Irricana and says the locally made tractor could work 125 acres a day when the traditional horse drawn equipment would be lucky to finish just one acre.

"Around this time 1912, 1913 it's estimated that two to five per cent of the arable farmland in southern Alberta had been plowed up so it was big tractors like this, that were going to rip out that prairie sod," she said. "This was a time of tremendous change and transformation in agriculture and of course this kind of this transformed Southern Alberta as well to an agricultural superpower capable of feeding ourselves and helping to feed the world too."

Justin Campbell is spearheading the restoration. He first saw the tractor when he was 16-years-old and always had a dream to see it put together. He volunteers his time and in these early stages of the project spends a lot of time loosening parts that have been seized for decades because when Pioneer Acres acquired it more than 30 years ago, it was in pieces and sat outside exposed to the elements.

"After it was dismantled during the Second World War within a couple of years it seized solid," he said. "After a lot of (hard work) and cleaning and pulling we actually got the (crankshaft) out and working again so for the first time since the war the crankshaft actually turns on this thing so yeah, it was a huge accomplishment."

Ken Craig is also a volunteer helping out on the project by polishing the rusty camshaft. He said it's a challenge having only a historic photo to use to restore the tractor.

"When you've got no instructions, no assembly instructions, you have to figure out where (pieces) go and then which order to put it together in," said Craig. "Because if you put it together in the wrong order, you end up taking it all apart to redo it."

TRACTOR PARTS WANTED

The restoration team knows they don't have all the parts from the original tractor and are hoping the public can help by donating missing pieces or have the skills to build new parts. The Pioneer 30-60 is an early version of the tractor and later models used different pieces.

"Even in the short lifespan of this tractor model, it progressed over time," said Craig. "So the pieces we find on this tractor, three years down the road would not be the same."

McElroy said the Pioneer was acquired from a family in Lethbridge that had three. Two were scrapped during the Second World War and this one survived. She said there are about 12 left in the world.

"The Reynolds Museum in Wetaskiwin has got one, there's one at the Western Development Museum, there's a Pioneer in Manitoba and there's a couple in the United States," said McElroy. "I'm a historian so I like to be really precise so I'm saying that consensus is a dozen but that's not very many."

She said the project will take years to complete and she's hoping for the tractor to run when it's finished.

"It's got  a story and it's an extremely rare tractor and we're so lucky to have it here," she said. "It's built in Calgary, historically significant to Calgary, (as well as)  to Canada (anbd) really to the world."

Pioneer Acres is hosting it's annual show from August 5 - 7 where the Pioneer 30-60 tractor can be seen along with all the other operational farm equipment at the museum. Learn more about it here.