No AI-generated images. All photos shown in this video are authentic historical photographs.
In 2025, Butch Dale’s Farmall H was still working at seventy-four. Its factory had stopped building tractors forty years earlier. How did the machine outlive the factory?
Did you learn to drive on a Farmall H, or did your family farm with one? Tell us what it did on your place.
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00:00 Butch Dale’s 1951 Farmall H
01:33 What the H Was Built For
05:12 Removable Sleeves and Engine Rebuilds
07:43 Chores for an Old Tractor
09:35 The Last Tractor at Rock Island
12:30 Parts Catalogs and Serial Numbers
14:53 Purchase Prices and Auction Sales
17:00 The Families Behind the Tractors
Notes:
– Dale’s current-use account is from June 2025. His $1,500 H-and-Woods-mower purchase and an alternative quote of more than $17,000 are older recollections reposted in 2026, not 2026 prices.
– May 14, 1985 marks the last tractor built, not administrative closure. H production ended in 1953; the Farmall name returned in 2003.
Sources: Farm Progress, InkFreeNews, Case IH / CNH, Farm Equipment, University of Nebraska, South Dakota Supreme Court via Justia, Yesterday’s Tractors, Steiner Tractor Parts, CR Inspirations, Purple Wave, TractorData, Hagley Museum and Library, Wisconsin Historical Society, Library of Congress, USDA / Prelinger Archives, Pixabay
Public domain: Wikimedia Commons, FDR Presidential Library / Internet Archive, Library of Congress, Prelinger Archives / Internet Archive. CC0: Daderot, Tomwsulcer. Stock video: Pixabay. Editorial reference: Wisconsin Historical Society, Hagley Museum and Library, IH Farmall-H Instruction Manual. Graphics: Quitting Time.
CC photos were cropped and color adjusted; adaptations of BY-SA photos are shared under the same license. Licenses: BY-SA 4.0 · BY-SA 2.0 · BY 2.0 · BY-SA 3.0
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