Allis Chalmers Tractor Division Letter

Thought this might be of interest to all. My dad received this letter for the Omaha Nebraska Tractor Division, Branch Mgr. in 1943. I remember dad saying it was hard to get new equipment during the war years. He purchased his first WD in 1949, otherwise farmed with WC's until then. In 1954 he purchased a WD45.

Exactly 20 years before I was born! Exactly 1 year after USS Wasp CV7 was sunk off Gaudalcanal !

Craig/insoh wrote: Exactly 20 years before I was born! Exactly 1 year after USS Wasp CV7 was sunk off Gaudalcanal !

4 1/2 months after my dad was born 😄 Those were exciting times in this country

Very interesting,, Oscar Cooke had a few Allis Chalmers heavy equipment places around Missouri, if its the same guy ? They were in Sedelia, Fulton, and Chillicothie, sold a lot of equipment to Mertens construction , I got in on a lot of good deals when Mertens bought the Quarry I worked at,

Wow that's really cool.

thanks Gerald for downsizing it so I could read it! and thanks Tom for posting it!

If you can't do it Creston, give me a holler and I'll print it out for you.  I can save it till Hutch or send it to you........let me know.

My father's dealership in Maryland did not receive this letter.  However, it is very appropriate for the time.  We knew it was a war we had to win.  We all did everything we could to make it happen.  There was no help so Pop had me put lugs on the steel wheels, - he would come around later and tighten them -, run parts, do whatever I could to help.  We also gathered scrap iron when asked, went through swamps to collect milkweed pods for life preservers, bought War Bonds and Stamps, and anything else we could do.  We were fitin the war in our own way.

Thanks for posting this letter.  This Allis-Chalmers company letter really puts things in perspective. My Dad is 89 years old and a WWII veteran. I will print a copy of this letter and share it with him. I'll see if he remembers finding it in his Dad's farm mailbox. Both, Dad & Grandpa farmed with AC tractors over the years (U, UC, WD, WD45, & D-17). 

Ted, I do have the envelope it came in which does have a .03 stamp. We found this letter in an old trunk after my mother pass away preparing for her household sale. Really pays to check all items when going thru a family estate. It was a great find.

Farm Collector - 1982, here is a paragraph from a interview with Oscar. If you search the internet, you find a lot of information on the man.


Oscar is a man of many parts and experiences. He started out on a farm, and as a teenager bought a farm of 160 acres in eastern Kansas. He was 14, and he put $400 down on it.

'I broke sod with a team of Molly mules,' he recalls. He grew watermelons on part of the land 'most beautiful vines you ever saw.' He did threshing, then went into the machinery business at Emporia, Kansas. Next he went to work for Allis-Chalmers and was Omaha branch manager.

'I helped develop the round baler,' he states with pride. 'I have the No. 1 round baler.

Tom