Digging Up the Past

Best No. 185 Steamer Revisits Peterson

In March 2004, one of the great iron patriarchs of the Caterpillar family came back to Peterson for repairs. In 1972, the Best 185 Steamer sat on display out in our showroom for San Leandro’s Centennial celebration. According to Daniel Best’s great-grandson, Terry Galloway, the 16-ton, 17.6-foot tall giant cleared the ceiling by just half an inch. At the end of the Centennial year, the tractor was moved to an old firehouse in the Elmhurst District of Oakland where a crew of 60 volunteers spent the next four years restoring it to original condition.

In 2004, the turn-of-the-century (1904) Best Steamer came back to Peterson to get ready for its own centennial celebration. For a week, the San Leandro shop worked to rebuild a worn out rear pinion gear, even fabricating the needed parts the old-fashioned way by machining. The giant 8 ft. diameter steel wheels had to be removed in order to get to the worn out parts. “We do most of the maintenance ourselves,” explains Ken Brunskill, crew chief for the Best, who led a 12-man volunteer crew out at Ardenwood Farms in Fremont. “We’ve been putting off this big repair because we had to remove the wheels to get to the worn parts. That’s why we decided to bring it to Peterson. While they were doing the mechanical repairs, we were able to do our own plumbing work on the boiler. It was an invaluable experience.”

The giant steamer was brought in on a low-bed, then half rolled, half pushed into a repair stall. Once inside, both giant steel wheels were removed with overhead cranes, revealing the extent of the wear. “Rich Butler was amazing,” exclaims Brunskill, of the SL machinist. “I couldn’t believe what he was able to do. The pinion gear shaft was barrel-shaped, a good 16th of an inch out. He grinded it to 4,000ths of an inch, the diameter of a single hair! And he did it with a hand grinder!”

The 185 Best Steamer was originally sold to California Sugar Pine Company for $7,500, and used to haul logs to the mill in Shingletown, California. Later, it hauled lumber from the mill to the railroad, up until the 1930s when it was sold to the Big Wheels Resort Inn. That’s where Galloway found it. “The Best family presented a proposal to the Oakland Museum several years ago about restoring an old Best steamer,” explains Galloway, a descendant of Daniel Best through his grandmother. “They liked the idea and with the help of a couple grants, we found the best of the 7 remaining steamers, put it on a lowboy, and headed straight for Peterson.” After its restoration, the tractor made its debut at the Oakland Museum’s “American Farm” exhibit in 1977, and in the mid-80s, it became a living history resident at Ardenwood Farms in Fremont, California.

Daniel Best's Steam Tractor #185, now in the Roots of Motive Power Collection in Willits, rolled off the assembly line in 1903. The tractor stands 17' 4" to the top of the stack, is 28' long, and 9' 7" wide, weighing 18 tons 800 lbs. with full boiler and tank. The steamer is No. 185 out of a total of 364 built at the Best plant in San Leandro. Testimonials state that the tractor could pull thirty-six 7 inch plows, the equivalent of 60-70 horses, and could plow a field of clay and adobe at the rate of 12 acres per hour.

RELATED STORIES:

• Caterpillar Begins

Additional Links:

www.mcn.org/k/motivepower/default.html

www.haskey.com/johnh/steam/best/best_tractor.html

In Dec. 2006, Daniel Best’s

#185 Steamer

moved to the Roots of Motive Power

Collection at the Mendocino County

Museum in Willits, California...

a couple hours from where Daniel

Best's great-grandson had found it

back in the early 1970s.