Construction & mining

Alexander Botts and the Earthworm Tractor - Botts Abroad Welcome to the world of Alexander Botts and Earthworm Tractors, a series of humorous short stories about a bumbling salesman’s trial and tribulations selling crawler tractors. His unusual sales tactics send the machines through impervious swamps, murky lakes, and high snowbanks. His schemes consistently backfire but, in the end, he never fails to close the deal! In this book, Botts talks his way into a job selling Earthworm Tractors for The Farmers’ Friend Tractor Company. Alexander Botts was created in 1927 by author William Hazlett Upson, and these stories are based on Upson’s brief career as a mechanic for the Caterpillar Tractor Company. For almost half a century, Botts was beloved by Saturday Evening Post readers in more than 100 short stories. This book is the first in a series and will be the only publication to present the collection in its entirety, including five Botts stories that never appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.

472 pages softbound The Diesel Odyssey of Clessie Cummins is a lively historical account of an American entrepreneur and diesel inventor best-known as the father of the American diesel truck. The adventurous path of Clessie Cummins is told from his early exploits as a boy genius through the founding and success of his global brand and company. Author C. Lyle Cummins, Jr., who is Clessie’s son, peers into every corner of the diesel inventor's life in this Clessie Cummins biography, from his first foray into the engine business at age eleven—when he began building steam engines out of pennies and shotgun shells until a mob of disgruntled locals shut down his enterprise—through a lifetime of miraculous stunts, such as accidentally convincing a town he created an engine that could run on river water! Lyle Cummins recounts memories of his father from his own youth and describes how later, as a practicing engineer, he saw other sides of the man who would become his employer, mentor, and colleague. Cummins’s formal schooling ended at the eighth grade. Despite that, he generated thirty-three US patents over fifty-six years. A racer at heart, he set world speed and endurance records in race cars and trucks.The American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Society of Automotive Engineers posthumously honored Clessie Cummins for his achievements. A tireless individual, years of grueling effort resulted in declining health. Yet, in his retirement, he created a new product that launched a second industry. For anyone who loves engines, innovation, or early American history, this easy-to-read and engaging Clessie Cummins book is a must.

Crane & Derrick Vol 1 96 pages color

International TD Crawlers 1933-1962 125 page softcover book