Nine Were Built, All Scrapped, Then He Built a Tenth

Between 1905 and 1907, the J.I. Case company of Racine, Wisconsin built nine 150-horsepower steam traction engines, the biggest it ever made. Every one of them was eventually scrapped, and only a single boiler was saved. Then a South Dakota foundry owner decided to build a tenth.

A Boy in a Town of 91

Kory Anderson grew up in Andover, South Dakota, a town of 91 people. His own biography says he learned about the 150 Case as a boy and started dreaming of rebuilding it.

In 2014 he bought Dakota Foundry in Webster, South Dakota, which gave him the iron-casting capacity the job would need.

Drawings From the Archive

Years earlier, at 22, he had visited the Case archives in Racine. The company still held most of the drawings for the 150, and he copied them.

He turned them into 3D models and then wooden patterns. In 2017, casting began at the foundry, and in all the build needed more than 250 unique castings.

Sixteen Months, 37 Tons

Machining and assembly happened in Sheridan, Wyoming, in the shop of Gary Bradley, while the rear wheels were built with Jim Briden in Fargo, North Dakota. The 8-foot rear wheels took more than 1,200 hot rivets between them.

The build took about 16 months. The finished engine is 25 feet long, 14 feet wide and 14 feet tall, and it weighs 75,000 pounds loaded, about 37 tons.

On August 18, 2018, the crew lit the first fire. Its top speed is 5.69 mph.

Plowing in Andover

The engine made its public debut in Andover in September 2018, pulling a 24-bottom plow. In 2022 it pulled 50 plow bottoms behind it at the same show.

In September 2019, at the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion in Rollag, Minnesota, it pulled four steam engines up a 13 percent grade, recreating a power test Case ran on the original.

Guinness World Records lists the 150 HP Case as the largest steam-powered tractor in operation. Its builder's schedule for the 2026 season put it back in Andover for the James Valley Threshing Show, September 11-13, with plowing planned for Friday and Saturday.

It comes back to the Andover show every year, the weekend after Labor Day. The engine is not a museum piece. Its builder steams it, hitches it to a plow and drives it across a field.