Hart Parr #3 Tractor
date: label: Date made
content: 1903
name: label: company co-owner
content: Hart, Charles W.
label: company co-owner
content: Parr, Charles H.
label: user
content: Mitchell, George
label: maker
content: Hart Parr Tractor Company
label: maker
content: Wrang Tang Liniment Co.
notes: label: Description
content: After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Charles W. Hart and Charles H. Parr developed a two-cylinder gasoline engine and set up their business in Charles City, Iowa. In 1903 the firm built fifteen tractors (a term coined by Hart and Parr), and the 14,000 pound #3 is the oldest surviving internal combustion engine tractor in the United States. The two-cylinder engine has a unique hit-and-miss firing cycle that produced 30 horsepower at the belt and 18 at the drawbar.
label: Description
content: The tractor worked on the George Mitchell farm near Charles City for twenty-three years. Realizing the historic importance of Hart-Parr #3, the Oliver Tractor Corporation (which had absorbed Hart-Parr) purchased the tractor and used it to demonstrate the quality of the firm's products. In 1960, Oliver made a gift of #3 to the Smithsonian.
label: Description
content: When it arrived at the National Museum of American History, it was painted solid black and did not have a canopy. Despite its unauthentic appearance, it remained on exhibit for years. In 2003 the Smithsonian agreed to a restoration plan, and a team from Greenville, Illinois, composed of Oliver and Sherry Schaeffer, John W. Tichenor, Doug Strawser, and Todd Stockwell restored #3 to its original color and fabricated a new canopy. The Smithsonian's Larry Jones coordinated the work. Restoration was funded by the Hart-Parr/Oliver Collectors Association.
label: Description
content: The restoration project was fully documented both by photographs and by a journal kept by John W. Tichenor. When #3 appeared at the I & I Antique Tractor festival in Penfield, Ill., in 2003, oral history interviews were done with members of the Mitchell family, the Hart family, and the key people who did the restoration work.
label: Location
content: Currently on loan
place: label: Place Made
content: United States: Iowa, Charles City
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Agriculture
label: See more items in
content: Agriculture
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Oliver Corporation
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: AG.60A04
label: catalog number
content: 60A04
label: catalog number
content: F001212
label: accession number
content: 230442
objectType: label: Object Name
content: tractor
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: iron (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: steel (overall material)