Story By Wayne Wiltse

Charles City, Iowa

Grandpa Wiltse & Einck

Grandpa Wiltse was a teamster at Hart-Parr. Nope, he wasn't part of a union. A teamster handled teams of horses in those days, which they used to move wagon loads of material before Hart-Parr had trackage in and around the plant. Grandpa Wiltse was lost in a fire in 1924, so I didn't get a chance to know him at all.

I never knew either of my grandpas, but I have heard Grandpa Einck was a stubborn man who wanted to be a locomotive engineer and wound up being a farmer. He worked at Hart-Parr in the 1920s and the early 1930s and was at the factory during the big push to get lightweight Hart-Parrs through the shop and out the door, likely as a carpenter crating tractors and building shop toolboxes.

Then he moved on to farming in Chickasaw County, just northeast of New Hampton. I have a very few pictures of Hart-Parr that he took before he moved the family onto the farm, and the pictures mostly show tractors being stored before shipping.

This illustrates what a teamster actually did before railroad tracks were built around the factory.

One of three photographs taken by Grandpa Einck at the Hart-Parr factory in Charles City, Iowa. Rows of Hart-Parr tractors wait outside the plant before being shipped to customers.

Grandpa Einck captured this view of newly built Hart-Parr tractors lined up outside the factory, ready for shipment.

Grandpa Einck (right) when he worked for the Milwaukee Road Railroad.

Grandpa Einck photographed dozens of Hart-Parr tractors lined up beneath the factory water tower, ready for shipment.

Charles Parr pauses beside the Hart-Parr tractors outside the Charles City factory. His work clothes suggest this photograph was taken during a normal day at the plant.