4/21/2009:
Wilfred Jacob Boechler "First Rubber Tire Tractor"
Interviewed: Allan, SK, 23 July 2006
Born: Allan, SK, 14 February 1926
It was the first rubber tire tractor around here, it was a little Case tractor and it was in 1940 when he bought that tractor. It had something to do with my grandfather passing away and my grandfather was what you would call a wealthy man. My mother got some money and my dad bought the Chevy car for $1,400 it was a Special Deluxe and it didn't have a heater, (soft chuckling) didn't have a radio, but it was a Special Deluxe in those days. It was a beautiful car and he also bought that little Case tractor and it was a rubber tire tractor and whenever we would be out in the field working with it, the neighbors would drive by and stop and walk in when we came in and want a ride on that tractor. Sometimes we had to unhook it and show them how it went into high gear, it went about 10 miles/hour and ‘Oh man, could we whip around in those field with that thing'. It was quite something to have a rubber tire, oh and everyone thought that the rubber was going to wear out so quick that you are going to have to buy new tires every year. It didn't work that way, they were good. Then of course, different people started buying tractors. There was a big concern over that. Some people were very opposed to it, because, they felt that they could raise their own power and they could have their horses, they would have colts and have their own power. These rubber tire tractors, when they ran out you would have to go and buy new ones and those kinds of things. Like progress, it went on, we moved into bigger ones and bigger ones, and finally the air-conditioned ones and so on.