History

[dpan]

This may interest ag and construction machinery history people. Photos are of demo of the last of the original Avery Manufacturing Co buildings in Peoria Il USA. May be possible still a few Avery Steam tractors as well as gasoline powered farm tractors in various parts of the world. Vintage Machinery site has info about Avery. RG LeTourneau stated operations in Peoria in 1934 acquired the abandoned Avery works. Thru the the years the various owners of the original LeTourneau company continued to occupy buildings, the longest building until 1984 was main parts facility. Since then used for test assembly, storage and occasionally some manufacturing operations. The shorter building was test building until recently when test moved to new engineering center. About one third of the buildings original width remained when pictures taken a week ago. In one of the pictures a long white building with Komatsu on end is the last of the Letourneau buildings Plant 1, has been refurbished many times since constructed in late 30's into 40's and is used to capacity yet today.
Mining trucks are products manufactured in this facility today. Not even echos of previous machines ag or construction remain

[Mrsmackpaul]

WOW thanks for sharing

Paul

[Tracshovel]

Quite a change. I visited this facility in the 90's not long after it became Komatsu. They were building Haulpak 830 dump trucks but still had a couple of Dresser 4000 wheel loaders on site.....these must have been the very last of those shovels built. It is certainly a site steeped in history.

[dpan]

Tracshovel depending on purpose of visit very possible you were toured thru the old test building, Building T. Mid 90's was era of the 4000 Loader. Short lived, reams could be written about that situation. Lots of 830 produced, time flies but if remember correctly first production of 830 was 1988, still in product offering of Komatsu. Know of many that did well over 100,000 hours before retired. Of course thats frame, cab, axle box as most other components exchanged as required. No intent to be preaching to the choir with these comments. Since your visit the bldg you toured where you saw 830's has had additions. World wide mining business for Komatsu and Cat is down considerably from recent past years. Just a few rambling thoughts. Haha.

[Tracshovel]

Carry on with your rumblings. I am enjoying them. Any more pictures of the plant in operation

[dpan]

Do you recall at your visit to Haulpak seeing any of the Tourneaucranes moving about. If you look at picture 009, just to left of flag then left of end of a bldg, an open area with trees showing in background, three thin objects appear vertically, those are the booms of three old Tourneaucranes. Still used for some lifting and carry.
Pic 007 building at far left with door toward street is the original Avery office building. For a long time the executive offices of Letourneau and successors until 1967 when present office opened. At time of your visit old bldg was for sale. The old office building had original door knobs with Avery logo stamped or cast in them, thru the years all were eventually pilfered. Building sold in 90's, today some sort of local State of Illinois offices. Directly across street from old office building where grassy area is was another large building, it was there when you visited. An interesting feature of that old building was a large area that for years was training facility for customers and distributors. In the RG days on Thursday mornings, in that large area, a nondenominational chapel service was held, those that wanted to attend did, many that didn't went and sat on levy along river. Height of levy has been raised a few times thru the years. Have been able to keep water out of the site successfully since big flood of 1942 if remember correctly. Maybe high water mark was pointed out to you.
No have no photos of activity in any of the buildings.

[Tracshovel]

Yes there were a couple Tourneaucranes around the assembly building yard which were being used. Didn't think much about them back then as being young I didn't fully understand RGs significance until a few years later. Was more interested in seeing the 830s built
Sometime later I read the book R.G. LeTourneau - Mover of men & Mountains which really opened my eyes to him and his work as well as the significance of Peoria in the earthmoving industry. Sadly I cannot find any photos of that visit.

[dpan]

There has been much written about R.G. Mover of Men and Mountains of course may be most famous. Another by an Australian author is very good "The LeTourneau Legend by Philip G. Gowenlock." I am a bit partial to that one as author thanked some people people I worked with either at front or end of book. Another interesting piece is http://www.letu.edu/opencms/export/download/library/historyofRglScrapers.pdf One of the things Letourneau recognized for was use of welded structures rather than castings. With the advent of hydraulic steered scrapers in mid 60's castings began to appear in goosenecks and hitch structure. The electric steer machines were all steel fabrications, as think about it the gear boxes that motors and cable drums were attached to were all steel fabrications. What had started as a earth moving machinery company by R.G. evolved into a off highway truck manufacture. Trucks started when Ralph Kress, another kind of innovative sort of man, have been told, developed the first Haulpak truck in late 50's early 60's, 27 ton capacity as recall. Kress adapted the suspension system from aircraft for the haul trucks. Also the V type box, this effected center of gravity favorably, suspensions brought about tighter turning radius. A bit more rambling, hehe, Kress left LW and went to Cat where he was father of 769 first Cat truck, interestingly had suspensions. It is rumored he left Cat after the demise of an electric drive truck, late 1960's, that really never developed, any and all that were built were removed from market. Lots of reason the scraper and grader business declined and truck portion of company increased. From 1984 all scraper and grader production had ceased and since has been truck manufacture. The 830's you saw were at that time the largest production haul trucks built, larger were in design but had not been produced. There is no evidence that the electric systems that were developed by Letourneau back in the scraper days, there was some early work done on propulsion systems, can be traced to present day systems for what is now a Komatsu company. The electric drive system of large Letourneau loaders was developed after company sale in 1953 and Longview and Vicksburg retained RG Letourneau name. The application of AC drive to 830 had to be a big enhancement to an already excellent performer.

[dpan]

Eight days after first pictures. Picture#2 north end, pictures 3 and 4 center, picture 5 south end looking north. Won't be long until grass is growing.