Every year, the Georgian Bay Steam Show and Family Farm Demonstration Festival shines a spotlight on a different iconic tractor brand.
This year, the show’s 54th year, members of the Georgian Bay Steam, Auto, Gas, Antiques Association will be focusing on a Canadian legend, Cockshutt, and hosting the International Cockshutt Club’s annual summer show.
Feature chair is Jake Hulse, one of the club’s younger members and a collector of Cockshutt equipment, tractors and memorabilia.
Like many collectors, he was introduced to the brand because it was a workhorse on the family farm.
“Dad, he had one when he first started farming,” Hulse said. “Then he bought a second one.”
Jake learned to operate that one and Cockshutt became his brand of choice – not only because of the family history.
“I like it because there’s also a Canadian history,” he said.
The company dates back to 1877, when James Cockshutt opened The Brantford Plow Works in Brantford, producing not only walking plows, but stoves and “scufflers” (cultivators).
Cockshutt purchased a licence to make the Wiard Junior Malleable Beam plow in 1878 and began developing and patenting his own plow designs. In 1882, the company incorporated as the Cockshutt Plow Company and by the late 1880s, was an industry leader in Canada.
In 1903, the company opened a new plant in Brantford, covering 23 acres. Among the equipment produced was an innovative gang plow that helped open the prairies to agriculture.
Cockshutt was hit hard by the Great Depression, when agricultural prices plummeted and farmers faced drought, grasshoppers and foreclosures.
It was in the 1930s, however, that the company added two new products that not only boosted the balance sheet, but made Cockshutt a leader in cutting-edge technology: the new Tiller Combine and a distribution deal with Allis-Chalmers and United tractors.
In 1935, Cockshutt added the Oliver tractor line, but it wasn’t until the Second World War that it designed its own tractor – the Cockshutt 30, the first tractor to incorporate a live power take off.
Production of the Cockshutt 30 had to wait until the end of the war in 1945, when Cockshutt also introduced a line of self-propelled harvester-combines.
In 1962, the company was the target of an unfriendly take-over, and the new management sold Cockshutt to The White Motor Company, which had also acquired The Oliver Co., and in 1963, Minneapolis-Moline.
White Farm Equipment continued to sell “Cockshutt” tractors, painted the traditional vermilion with cream wheels even though the models were actually produced by Oliver, Minneapolis-Moline and even Fiat. The name was finally retired in the mid-1970s.
Hulse noted that the Brantford plant continued to be operated by White Farm Equipment.
“Even up into the 1980s, they were the home of the largest combine in the world,” a combine designed originally by Cockshutt, he said. “It’s a Canadian design that still holds up today.”
The Steam Show will have a large selection of Cockshutt tractors, equipment and memorabilia, but there’s one display that Hulse hasn’t been able to track down.
Cockshutt was “the first to test a tractor over 100 horsepower, with a live power take-off,” he noted. Only one prototype was built and is known to have been restored.
“It hasn’t come up in a show in a while,” Hulse said. “It’s in the U.S. It would be nice to get it back.”
The Georgian Bay Steam Show takes place in Cookstown all weekend. It started today.
In addition to displays of Cockshutt and other vintage tractors, there will be antique and classic cars, a flea market, tractor pulls, live entertainment on the main stage and a display of working gas, diesel and steam engines, motors and models.
The “Queens” of the Show are always the massive steam engines that revolutionized agriculture at the turn of the 20th century.
For the kids, there are pony rides, an inflatable bouncy castle and pedal tractor pulls. And on Sunday, everyone is invited to the OTTPA-sanctioned modified truck and tractor pull. Just bring ear protection.
With demonstrations of agricultural equipment, horse-drawn wagon rides, daily pancake breakfasts, afternoon corn roasts, a free movie on Friday night, talent shows on Saturday and Sunday night, and a daily parade of vintage equipment, the Georgian Bay Steam Show offers something for everyone.
Gates open at 7:30 a.m. daily. Admission is $8 on Friday and Monday, $12 on Saturday and Sunday – free for accompanied children under 12.
The steam show grounds are located at 4635 Victoria St. W. in Cookstown. Please – no bicycles or dogs on the show grounds.
