American Tractor Corporation (ATC) was an American manufacturer of tracked type agricultural and industrial

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most common ...

s based in

Churubusco, Indiana Churubusco ( or ); often shortened to Busco (), is a town located near the headwaters of the Eel River (Wabash River), Eel River in the extreme northeast corner of Whitley County, Indiana, United States, in Smith Township, Whitley County, Indiana, ...

. Their tractors were marketed using the "Terra" prefix before a descriptive term. The

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

s were referred to as Terra Dozers, the general purpose tractors Terra Tracs and the

backhoe A backhoe—also called rear actor or back actor—is a type of excavating equipment, or digger, consisting of a digging bucket on the end of a two-part articulated arm. It is typically mounted on the back of a tractor or front loader, the latt ...

s Terra Hoes. ATC was purchased by the J. I. Case Company in 1957 primarily to obtain ATC's unique backhoe design.

History

In 1950 Marc Rojtman purchased the crawler manufacturing from

Warren, Ohio Warren is a city in and the county seat of Trumbull County, Ohio, United States. Located in northeastern Ohio, Warren lies approximately northwest of Youngstown and southeast of Cleveland. The population was 39,201 at the 2020 census. The his ...

based Federal Machine. He purchased a building in Churubusco, Indiana, to house his company and relocated the operation there. Working 15‑hour days along with his employees allowed ATC to grow by 1951 to $3 million in sales. By the mid-1950s ATC was building six different

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpart ...

with equipment ranging from

forklift A forklift (also called lift truck, jitney, hi-lo, fork truck, fork hoist, and forklift truck) is a powered industrial truck used to lift and move materials over short distances. The forklift was developed in the early 20th century by various c ...

s to

earthmoving Earthworks are engineering works created through the processing of parts of the earth's surface involving quantities of soil or unformed rock (geology), rock. Shoring structures An incomplete list of possible temporary or permanent geotechnical ...

and even a

three-point hitch The three-point hitch (British English: three-point linkage) is a widely used type of hitch for attaching ploughs and other implements to an agricultural or industrial tractor. The three points resemble either a triangle, or the letter A. Three-p ...

, rare on crawler tractors. In 1957 J. I. Case made an offer to merge ATC into Case. This was mutually advantageous as ATC had innovative designs but lacked a strong

distribution network Electric power distribution is the final stage in the delivery of electric power; it carries electricity from the transmission system to individual consumers. Distribution substations connect to the transmission system and lower the transmissi ...

whereas Case had not had success in the crawler market, but had an international distribution network. Of particular interest to Case was the backhoe that ATC had developed for its machines. Within the year Case had married the ATC backhoe to a Case 300 series tractor with a loader creating the first factory built and integrated

loader backhoe A backhoe loader, also called a loader backhoe, loader excavator, digger in layman's terms, or colloquially shortened to backhoe within the industry, is a heavy equipment vehicle that consists of a tractor-like unit fitted with a loader-style sh ...

in the American market.

External links

Tractordata.com ATC

References

{{Reflist 1950 establishments in Indiana Companies based in Indiana Agriculture companies of the United States Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1950 Tractor manufacturers of the United States American companies established in 1950