The Metz family and the “history of tractors”
by Amber Schmitz, Sumner Newscow — In 1968, Dennis Metz of Oxford purchased his first antique tractor, a 1936 Allis-Chalmers U, which started his collection, and he still has it.
Dennis Metz
Dennis Metz, his sons Wade and Jason Metz, and grandsons Anthony, Jacob and Logan Metz, presented a program “A History of Tractors” at a recent Sumner County Historical and Genealogical Society meeting at the Wellington Public Library.
He also owns a Holt two ton tractor, the first model with the name Caterpillar on it, an Oliver Hart-Parr, and an Oliver 70 with a unique cab on it.
Besides collecting them, Metz reads, researches and learns all good and bad points about the different models, including the ones that he owns, and knows the former owners of his antique tractors.
Some of his tractors he co-owns with his sons. His grandson Jacob Metz, a high school senior, is restoring an Allis-Chalmers tractor grader as part of an FFA project.
Metz still owns a 1942 SC Case tractor that his father purchased the year he was born.
“My dad bought that tractor new when I was born, and we’re both about shot,” Metz said. “In 1942, he had to go to a war committee that would allow him to buy it. He had to bring a certificate from them to the tractor company. He told them he failed to bring the certificate in, so they wrote him a certificate anyway, and he took it to the war committee and was allowed to buy a tractor.”
Since his first purchase, he and his family have restored about 30 antique tractors, including a two-ton Holt, and Oliver 70 prototype. They even took parts from various other ones to build their own tractor.
“All I ever really wanted was one more,” Metz said. “I share this hobby, or some may call it an addition, with my sons and grandsons.”
When he was growing up, he visited with his grandfather about tractors, and how they were developed.
Logan Metz is a third generation tractor expert.
“He said there are three things that make a tractor successful,” Metz said. “One was oil, he said the steam engine in particular needed oil in the crank case; next, air cleaner, on a hot, cast iron would never work with a light utility tractor. When they got steel, it made tractors more feasible. The last thing, that big, heavy tractors were never going to sell in corn country. In 1929, the most tractors were sold in the United States.”
“The Happy Farmer tractor, well, I’m not sure after you had it you were a happy farmer,” Metz said. “The particular style tried by several people didn’t work.”
Cyrus McCormick, of McCormick-Deering, built and designed the first binder in 1925, and it proved to be really successful. It was built until 1942. Metz grew up playing on one that his grandfather owned.
When Allis-Chalmers’ tractor hit the market, it was really durable and handy, and a lot of them were sold.
“I have one that has a jaw clutch in the middle,” Metz said. “If you put your foot on the jaw clutch, it stops the movement, and the tractor stops running. It had a combine that went with it.”
Jacob Metz shows off is International cub tractor.
Metz’ grandson, Jacob Metz, also restored an International Cub tractor. This was an attempt by International to make a smaller tractor, and was designed more for small farmers. In 1946, the Oxford Mill purchased one new to mow around the mill and push snow. They also used it to hook up to a generator when they needed electricity to generate power for the mill.
“People get ‘old iron fever’ and bring their antique tractors to the fairgrounds in Winfield once a year,” Jacob Metz said.
The K&O Gas and Steam Engine Show is held every August at the fairgrounds in Winfield.
When his son Jason was 12, he bought a tractor and gave it to him, as he has done for all of his sons and grandsons.
“I was 12, and knew nothing, dad said you can’t screw it up as long as you don’t lose parts,” Jason Metz said. “I took the carb off, cleaned it up, took the magneto off, cleaned it up and got it hot. I knew I had to time the engine, but wasn’t sure what to do, so I set the mag to what I thought was close, and the tractor came to life. I was a happy 12 year old kid.”
When Wade was a teenager, his dad bought three two-ton Holt tractors, and two were in pieces.
“I redid the mag, fired it up and it ran,” Wade Metz said. “The tracks go across like a caterpillar going across the ground. I still have a lot of fun with people who claim they can work on things. The intake goes up the manifold, through the engine, and goes back into the cylinders. I had to scratch my head quite awhile until I figured it out. It’s mean handling, mean riding, and mean looking. It was bought new by the orchard south of Oxford in 1926, and ran until 1942. They put a blade on the front, took it to the river and pushed rocks into the river on a big dam.”
The Metz homemade tractor.
Thirty years ago, when Metz’ son Jason was a child, he wanted to build his own tractor, so he gathered up iron and wheels, and cleaned up an old iron pile with a Skidsteer.
“Jacob asked if we could build it, and he and grandpa got together,” he said. “I was elected blacksmith, and they dreamed up ideas, and I put it together.”
The engine was from a 1941 International 8 hp, 1200 RPM Speed Demon. Metz originally bought the motor when he was a custom cutter and got tired of shoveling wheat and built a grain conveyor. He bought the motor to dump grain and get back out into the field to cut wheat. He decided to build a tractor, so gathered stuff up, and decided he wanted it to look like a Rumely oil pull.
“We took the back wheels off a John Deere manure spreader, and the front wheels off of a stationary Climax cutter,” Metz said. “We needed forward and reverse transmission, and in the field was an old silage cutter. We took the Ford transmission off of the silage cutter, and the clutch and main shaft off of an Allis-Chalmers A combine, and mounted it sideways. On the other side was a separate clutch, and we powered it from a motor belt shift.”
The clutch and transmission, Metz said, came from an old manure spreader, as well as the wheels. The cast iron seat came from a horse-drawn sickle mower, and the steering wheel came from a cast iron McCormick-Deering tractor. On the front, it has the signature look of a Rumely oil pull smoke stack, as tractors once had, where the exhaust went in and the radiator laid flat, and heat going up drew air from the bottom to cool the engine.
“We started building it in Dec. 2011, and had a few trial runs,” Metz said. “The first time, the gearing was slow. When we started the engine, it took 20 minutes just to back it out of the shed. We rolled it back into the shop and redid the gearing and tried again. Then there was trouble with the steering, and redid that.”
Metz said they’ve had a lot of fun with their unique homemade tractor. At the K&O tractor show, they belted it up and baled hay with it. His grandson, Jacob, wrote an essay about it in 7th grade.
“We didn’t have enough toy tractors, so we had to build one,” Jason Metz said.
In the 1980s, Metz purchased an Oliver 70 standard and got it running, and even put green house paint on it. He worked hard on it until he got everything just right. It had glass windows that rolled up and down, and a windshield that folded out.
“At the K&O show, a guy in a walker started running after me, so I stopped,” Wade Metz said. “He said he had been looking for that tractor, because he sold it brand new. He said it was a prototype with a cab, and that he drove it off the rail car in Wichita, and took orders from the plant.”
The man told him that when he unloaded them off the trailer, the first two had cabs on them, so he had to call the plant and tell them he didn’t order any with cabs. At the time, the Post Office was purchasing them with cabs to deliver mail in the winter, but realized the cabs were too small, so the project was scrapped, and they were told to destroy the remaining 58 when they hit the ground. By the end of the week, they had sold to new owners, and were told to leave the cabs on.
“We put it in the garage, and a wind storm brought the garage down on top of the tractor and destroyed it,” he said. “Turns out, there were no anchor bolts.”
He and his son Anthony decided to fix it, and it took a lot of sheet metal, measuring, and trying to figure it out. Wade’s older brother Dan looked through an old barn and found the door they needed. There is another fully restored one in Nebraska that has changed owners several times. The model sold new in 1941 for about $1,000.
Anthony made a Sonic run with his rebuilt tractor during the K&O show, and someone took a picture of him, posted it on Facebook, and it went viral.
“I was passing cars on Main Street in Winfield with it,” Anthony Metz said. “It is loud and obnoxious and will go over 55 miles per hour.”
Join the Metz family at the Winfield Fairgrounds in August for the annual K&O Gas & Steam Engine Show.
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