Rock Island, IL: IH: Farmall Plant

(Update: there are a lot of photos in this article. About three-fourths of the plant has been turned into greenspace. In 2018, McLaughlin Body bought the remains of the plant. [QConline] Looking at a satellite image, it appears a lot of that "greenspace" has been redeveloped including a rather new John Deere Seeding plant.

Some photos of Farmall tractors)

International Harvester Collectors Chapter 37 Eastern North Carolina posted
What a sight this must have been back in the day. Life at the Rock was good 👍🏻👍🏻

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

International Harvester began manufacturing tractors in 1906. In the 1920s, it developed the Farmall design. The Rock Island, IL plant was built to build Farmall tractors [video], and it began operations in 1926. In 1937 the color is switched from grey to red, and Raymond Loewy's design that is now ubiquitous at tractor shows was introduced in the late 1930s. On Feb. 1, 1974, it celebrated its 5 millionth tractor. [QCtimes1] The plant grew to 1,900,000 square feet (49 acres) under roof. At its peak it produced 350 tractors a day and employed 5000 workers. [QCtimes2]

CaseIH posted
In 1923, the Farmall patent was filed. That same year ​22 models were built by hand. By 1924, 200 more rolled off the line.
https://info.caseih.com/CIHFarmAll100.html
A timeline
Walt Miller: worked at farmall in 1966 in rock island il at the time there was 6500 people working there they had over 72 acres under roof. my father retired from there.
Gordon Kennedy: A neighbor had an F12 that he would plow with and would kill it ever so often. His wife walked along to crank it back up for him so he didn't have to get out of the seat.
Andy Rutt: Take away the Case inspired hood, case rear axles and CDC engine and the 7100 series magnum was indeed IH. That power shift design carried on for a long time. Had the merger not taken place the magnum would have looked like a 5488 IH. Way more “Harvester” going on there than many seem to realize

RedPowerMagazine

But because of management competing in too many lines (e.g. John Deere for agriculture, Cat for construction, many for trucks, GE/Whirlpool/... for refrigerators), labor strife in 1979, problems with the 2+2, and a recession in farming in the 1980s; Tennaco bought the agriculture assets, including the name, of International Harvester. But they did not buy the Farmall plant because they already owned JI Case's tractor plant in Racine, WI. So the last tractor ceremony (in contrast to a celebration) was held on May 14, 1985. The assembly building was torn down in 2007. [video, QCtimes1] When Tennaco forced the closure of this plant, 35% of the nation's capacity to make large tractors was eliminated. Even so, the Racine plant was running at just 28% capacity. And in 1985 only 7,500 combines were made even though the industry had a capacity to build 50,000 to 60,000. [ChicagoTribune] That is how bad the agriculture market was in the 1980s.

CB&Q ran through the north side and Rock Island ran along the south side. Below I include more of the 1938 photo so that you can see the plant was east of the railroad yards and south of the Rock Island Arsenal. Today, the McLaughlin Body Company and the Hill & Valley Premium Bakery use some of the former buildings, but most of the land is a parking lot or still vacant (some contemporary pictures). (The CB&Q is gone, and the Rock Island is now owned by the Iowa Interstate (IAIS).)

1938 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

While studying the CB&Q roundhouse in Rock Island, I got a more recent aerial photo of the plant.

EarthExplorer: Apr 26, 1970; AR1VCMH00010296

Update: more production numbers: "1 million IH tractor was a 1947 M, 3 million tractor 1955 300, 4 million 1964 806, 5 million 1974 1066. JD made 3 millionth tractor in mid 80's." [YesterdaysTractor, 12-16-2004 08:44:02 ] "JD" is John Deere.

Farm Machinery posted
Farmall Works Assembly Line - Photograph - Wisconsin Historical Society .

Norm Oeding: Looks a bit crowded.

Paul Zuber: Like the engine is fastened to the side rails ….. and they are bolting the rails to the mid section of the tractor ….. nice photo thanks.

International Harvester posted

Mark Wisniewski commented on the above posting

Scott Perry shared
George King Worked on many tractors while they were still hung and after they were put on stands.

Wilson Farms posted
33 years ago the last International was made.
Corey Vondracek Acctuly a good deal of the engineering concepts and technology was 90% international.....case had alot of input on cab design and operator platform...I wish someone co.uld find some of the old concept drawings of what the next series was supposed to look like
Martin Rickatson I’m heading to Burr Ridge tomorrow - hope to be able to post a current photo of this tractor.
Dennis DeBruler Are you a dealer? The receptionist told me they had a museum, but only groups of special people can see it. I'm certainly not special. They would not even let me take pictures of the displays in the entry lobby! I guess I'm going to have to visit John Deere's three visitor centers instead.
Martin Rickatson I’m a farming writer/journalist from the UK coming over with a group of dealers and customers. I’ll be there in the morning so look out for some photos.
Terry Brock I Do know that right them Case Ih put Hundreds of Smaller Dealers out of Business. They couldn,t afford the Million Dollars upgrades to there Computer Systems and carry the parts inventory that CaseIH was Demanding,

John Green commented on a share of a post
And here it sits today in Racine at the Racine Experience Center.

Farmall 706-806-1206-56-66-68-86-88-60 posted (source)56 series tractors ready to be shipped out of Farmall works lots of 1456s on there

Farmall 706-806-1206-56-66-68-86-88-60 posted (source)
Ih tractors loaded on a railcar ready to ship out judging by the 4or560 in the background this is possibly 1962 or 63 looks like 504 utility tractors loaded

Scot Perry shared
Where many of tractors from the 706 to the 5488/7488 were made.

CNH Industrial posted
Did you know, that on February 1, 1974, the 5,000,000th tractor bearing the Farmall nameplate rolled off the production line at the Farmall Works plant in Rock Island, Illinois — the first tractor manufacturer to officially produce past this threshold. That tractor is the Farmall 1066 Turbo.
https://farmall100years.com/
Cliff Suddaby: Yes I did. I touched this tractor in Rock Island plant

Jeremy Ekkel shared Jean Cointe's post of five photos with the comment: "FARMALL Plant 1978 Press unveiling of the 2+2 tractors @WHS special thanks to Herbert Starzinger for the research."

Joe Trappler: Unstoppable tractor in the mud.

Xristos Tziotzios: I can’t understand how this company has closed!!

Dennis Coopman: Xristos Tziotzios the story I got from a employee there was Brooks McCormick wanted to break the union. Instead he bankrupted his company. [The Fort Wayne, IN, truck plant closed rather soon after a long strike. Springfield, OH, got all of the manufacturing work.]

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Heritage Iron Magazine posted
“To meet unabated worldwide demand for its products, IH had capital expenditures of $181 million in 1974 and plans to invest substantially more than that amount over the next three years to increase production capacity at the Company’s worldwide manufacturing facilities.”
Sales that year totaled $4,965,916,000. Trucks maintained the majority of product sales at 46%; Ag/Industrial 35.9%; construction equipment 12.6%, and “other” sales rounded out the total at 5.5%.
“The term that most aptly characterizes IH’s 1974 fiscal year is, of course, shortage. Energy, raw materials, manufactured components and capital – all were on the shortfall list; every resource, in fact, that is essential to orderly functioning of our business. Every resource save one. The most important one. The human resource. The coincidence of these shortages - brought about by misguided efforts to manipulate the law of supply and demand for political and nationalistic purposes - has created the economic and social malaise from which the world now suffers."- International Harvester Annual Report, 1974.
Jason Snider: Pay attention to the article. It’s 1973 all over again!!!!!!!!
Andy Rentschler: They shoulda saved their money and kept building the 66 series and skipped to the Magnum!!
Douglas Boll: Andy Rentschler A Magnum is way better than any 66 series,from front to back, are you old enough to remember how many rear ends failed on the 66/86 series? They were still using a bull gear differential in a 1486. The 88s have a man sized ring and pinion as do the magnums. The 66/86 series had a good engine with nothing behind it.
John Daviduik: Both my Grandpa’s were die hard IH men. I thought they would come unhinged when my dad brought home a 4430. The IH had a good powerful engine but that’s where it ended. The cab on the 66’s and hydraulics and transmission were pathetic compared to the 30 series Deere.
Len Nickel: IH was number one until 1964. That's when John Deere came out with the 4020 and IH never recovered their no 1 sales position.
Douglas Boll: Len Nickel I h actually fell to #2 in the late 50s when jd was still building 2 cyl tractors. The 560s broke ih. [Others explained that the 560 was a new, bigger motor in front of M's transmission and rear end, which could not handle the additional 20hp.]
Brian Simonson: Len Nickel not true. It was a bearing problem period. Ball bearings were swapped out for roller bearings. Problem solved.
Len Nickel: John Deere is still in business and IH got bought out by Tenneco who wanted the combine plant. That's the only IH left in Case IH.
Mark Simon: Len Nickel first magnums were all ih technology also.. all developed by ih.

Some tractor heritage books

International Harvester Collectors Chapter 37 Eastern North Carolina posted
1962 International Harvester Farm Equipment Catalog

safe_image for IH Farmall Works closes its doors on June 27, 1986 [paywall]
Retro Quad Cities shared

Al Taylor: Union in action. Strike yourself out of a job.

Chase Roberts: Al Taylor that's not accurate at all. The strike was in 79-80, and lasted 6 months. Carters grain embargo on Russia was more devastating than any union concessions ever given. By that time poor leadership had led them to be overextended, and unable to pay back loans as equipment sat on the lot. Deere had dominated sales since the 50s, automated, and cut their workforce. IH eventually sold to Case and that was the beginning of the end.

Retro Quad Cities shared

Thad Shumaker: Sad times for the qc. In 79 when I was born we had Farmall, we had ih East moline plant, we had j I case, we had caterpillar, and we had deere. Plus all the littler job shops that made stuff for them all. By the time I graduated in 97, we had deere and ih East mo which was getting ready to close. Now we have deere, and that’s it. Sad we were once the farm implement capital of the world

Comments on second share above