Many people are under the impression that it was the
Holt Tractor Company, later merged with the second
Best Tractor Company, to become the
Caterpillar Traction Company which invented and patented the crawler tractor in California, but the first patent for a tracked vehicle, US Patent No. 23,853, was issued May 3, 1859, to Warren P. Miller of Marysville, California for "
What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by letters patent is: the combination of the endless chain or track with the leading and driving wheels cc and the supporting tracks ee wholly constructed and operated substantially as and for the purpose set forth in said specifications". It had expired by the time that Alvin Orlando Lombard applied for a patent on essentially the identical mechanism on November 9, 1900. US Patent No. 674,737 was issued May 4, 1901.
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Lombard arranged with Waterville Iron Works to build the first Lombard log hauler. In 1900 the Alvin O. Lombard Traction Company began in the Waterville Iron Works the construction of the Lombard Steam Log Hauler, and on Thanksgiving Day of that year, the first machine made its trial run".
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The first log hauler had an upright boiler and two upright engines", each driving one track in an effort to avoid a differential in the drive train. Severe vibration when the two engines were in step ended that experiment and Lombard reverted to the use of a conventional differential driving the two tracks from one engine. "
The upright boiler and engine were soon replaced by a horizontal boiler and engine, and in its final form, the steam log hauler was a railroad yard engine, known as a saddle back." In this configuration the log hauler had two cabs, one at the front for the steersman and one at the rear for the engineer. "
In 1903 the first log hauler was sold to a Maine lumber firm and soon a number were hauling logs on snow roads and they rapidly came into general use in Maine and New Hampshire." Other configurations, one for hauling mail and passengers, one on which was mounted a snow plow and one for hauling quarry stone were built, as well. An electric motor driven unit was even attempted, but the first snowfall and its attendant short circuits quickly ended that experiment.
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The first Lombard gasoline engine machine was built in 1909 by Lombard for H. H. Linn and purchased by him for running a tent dog show, which he conducted on the road at that time. This is the same Linn who later built gasoline tractors which were used in New York State for hauling logs. By 1917 Lombard seems to have been making gasoline powered engines exclusively." The gasoline powered log hauler had substantially less power than the did steam powered haulers and in 1934 Lombard built his first diesel powered log hauler. The machine had, by that time, been made obsolete by trucks running on logging roads built by bulldozers and it was the last log hauler that Lombard built.
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The company had made 83 log haulers in all, most of which were used in Maine and New Hampshire. Three were shipped to Russia. Log haulers that were in town when their work was done were nearly all cut up and sold for junk. Most of them were abandoned in the woods where ever they happened to be and there they still stand, forgotten and inaccessible".
One of the very few of the steam engines that were preserved has been restored to its original running condition and is on exhibition in the
Patten, Maine, Lumberman’s Museum.
This model, built around 1920, is a gasoline powered model, powered by a large six cylinder engine. We know not which model this one might be, but the Model N used a 1575 lb. 6 cylinder Model PT Wisconsin engine with 5-3/4" x 7" bore and stroke, giving a displacement of 1,090 CI - a pretty big engine, indeed. Lombard used two variations of these large engines, rated at 110 and 140 horsepower.
The Lombard steam log hauler has been designated as a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).
Lombard also licensed the log hauler to the Phoenix Manufacturing Company of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which built a number of both steam and gasoline powered units. A few years ago we happened across an excellent steam powered version, known as
The Centiped Log Hauler in the
Western Development Museum in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. It had been used by The Pas Lumber Company until the 1930s in northern Saskatchewan.
Quotes are from the ASME
Alvin 0. Lombard of Waterville, Maine, invented and manufactured steam-powered, and later gasoline-powered, tractors to haul logs. Beginning in 1901, these tractors, known as "Lombard Log Haulers" revolutionized work in the Maine woods.
The principal Lombard invention was the system of moving tracks. This critical innovation is used today on tractors, military vehicles, and snowmobiles. Skis were placed in the front for steering, but no vehicles were equipped with brakes.
A gasoline-powered Lombard built around 1920 is shown in this exhibition. It was used in the Allagash region of Maine.
From the plaque at the log hauler