West Kern Oil Museum

[mag6000]

Hello all,

In Taft, Ca. there is a neat museum full of old equipment from the areas oil industry's past. I happened upon this place a couple of years ago. Here are some pics.
Could'nt find an ID for this truck, but the chain drive is cool!

[surfer-joe]

That's a chain-drive Mack. Have they got the new oil derrick finished yet? It blew down two or three years ago and was just a pile of kindling.

[Squizzy246B]

Old Fodens where often Chain Drive??

[Jeff D.]

Thanks for the pics Mag6000.

I wonder how often the had to adjust those chains?

I like the shag sidewalls too.***

[mag6000]

Surfer, yes they do have the new derrick up. Next up is an ancient White fire truck, a big IHC dump and a huge Waukesha 6 cyl gas engine. Notice the pony starting engine.

[mag6000]

A great old crane. The front license plate shows it was last registered for the road in 1974. Does anyone have an ID for the truck and crane. Also a Studebaker in the third pic

[Lashlander]

Can't help with the truck but that old crane is a Bucyrus Erie. I would guess a 22B. We had a late 40's model until we sold it a couple years ago. It was on tracks though. This is the only pic in my computer. It doesn't show it very good, I'll find some better ones.

[surfer-joe]

I believe that is an Autocar chassis, I was going to say B&E on the crane, or a Bay City, but maybe a Koehring too.

[surfer-joe]

The Waukasha would make a lovely rebuild project for someone with the time and money needed.

[mag6000]

The crane chassis does look like an Autocar. I wonder what the fuel consumption is like with that Waukesha. Here are some for the grader fans.

[mag6000]

An old tractor with a huge front winch. Anyone with an ID on this tractor?

[King of Obsolete]

great pictures, the motor in the tractor is a TWIN CITY made in st.paul MN so i would guess the tractor is a twin city too.

thansk

[DigDug]

Yes the crane is a Bucyus erie in my eyes.

[werkhorse]

Ok fella's the top truck is a 1930's B series, probably a BX, and the crane truck IS a 1940's Peterbilt.

[Countryboy]

Welcome to HEF werkhorse! :drinkup

[mag6000]

Well, how about a few more. Here is a well preserved or restored Autocar.

[mag6000]

And here is an old Mack truck.

[mag6000]

And another.

[mag6000]

One more.

[werkhorse]

thank's counrtyboy I'm more of an old truck nut than a machinery nut but it's sort of a close second lol

[King of Obsolete]

excellent pictures of excellent trucks. thansk for posting.

thansk

[surfer-joe]

Anybody notice that those old chain-drive Macks had been converted to use the chain-drives to power draw-works and derricks?

There were used to power pump jacks as well in the old days. One would often be connected to a cat-head and power several pump-jacks with a system of cables. There is tons of old cable buried in the oil fields of Kern County. The outfit I worked for there dug a lot of it up, then we had to dispose of it somewhere. Like everything else in the oil patch, a cable wasn't discarded till it was so worn out and full of fish hooks you could have caught a entire school of Tuna with it.

[Duke]

Those old trucks remind me of how difficult work must have been back then.

[werkhorse]

OK........... the Autocar is a DC10064 by the look of it and the rest are all AC model mack's the model that gave Mack the bulldog legend

[thejdman04]

:notworthy Nice pics

[mag6000]

A few more...

[mag6000]

This one has some impressive winch and belt works.

[chris88]

That yellow mack is nice. I belive thats an A model but please correct me if im wrong. That stuff is in nice shape compared to how it would over here. Stuff 10 years old is rotted out worse than those trucks

[werkhorse]

The Mack is an L model probably an LJ from 1940 to 1950 the A model started in 1950 till '53 it had the same grille but had a one piece windscreen same as the E model

[King of Obsolete]

i asked ferrology to to join us since he has all the info on the linn tractor that has the mack C-cab on it.

hope he is a long soon.

thansk

[ferrology]

Linn # 1417 model 6-28-E (extended frame, more commonly used as loggers), standard ten ton model otherwise, 677 displ. Waukesha 6AB or 6RB 100 hp 6 cyl., top speed around 12 mph, this unit has special equipment in that a Mead-Morrisson double spool winch with 700' of 5/8 cable, weighing 830 lbs., 2 speed forward and reverse, 1200 to 6400 pounds pull, requiring 18 hp PTO. For the most part Linn was designed to remain legal highway dimension, (although boosting payload by increasing length would cause problems in later models when dumping, most of the postwar 15 ton models like Bill Rudicill's have been tipped over at some point). Standard Oil Co. purchased this unit by 1929 and had it shipped to Big Springs, TX where it was used to haul several Athey type trailers. Because of the special winch added under the seat where normally the gas tank was located, special fuel tanks were added under the platform. The cab shown is a later addition, and if you look close the anti-friction roller chain appears to be missing from inside the track, along with radiator. When I first contacted the musem c. 1990 they had no idea what the machine was or that they had a Linn, (a friend had pointed out a photo in an old "Old Cars Weekly" that showed it as an unidentified truck). Since then several more Linns have migrated to CA, such as that at the Hays Museum and one owned by Calvert, not to mention the one at Colfax that returned to Canada (Bill Graham). The Linn was a commercial halftrack type machine built 1917-1952 in Morris, NY, a ten ton carrying capacity, not much faster than most steel tracked crawlers but didn't need dead weight or trailers to carry a load.

[ferrology]

Will try and find some better pics

[ferrology]

A unit similar to the Taft, CA Linn (note full enclosed wood cab) and Linn built trailers used for logging near Flagstaff, AZ in 1929, similar units were used by Homestake in Nemo, SD andothers in teh ID/MT/WA/OR region. In teh Northeast as in Canada, they usually hauled the big loads on sleighs during the 2/3 the year we call "winter"***
Bigger photo from 1930 on highway work, the tractor could haul the shovel on trailer to a job site, at this time they were cleaning out creekbeds for gravel to build roads so this outfit made a good pair.

[King of Obsolete]

thansk for joining us ferrology, can you dig out some more info on the linn tractor.

thansk

[Countryboy]

Welcome to HEF ferrology! :drinkup

Some great stuff you got there.

[King of Obsolete]

yes ferrology is a wealth of knowedge plus he talks with both hands (types with more then one finger not like us) LOL

thansk

[wrenchbender]

This thread ROCKS :notworthy here I was thinking I was all alone. The only guy in the world that liked old and beaten equipment from days gone by. Then I found HEF Thanks guys and keep posting these great pics of old trucks,equipment and the such.

[King of Obsolete]

yes wrenchbender, the computer make the world a small place.

i want to move to california for the straight clean old iron and the lovely ladies, LOL there is none in the great white north, everything road hard and put a wet, iron that is, LOL

thansk

[Lashlander]

That old Autocar in post 16 made me think of you wrenchbender.:drinkup

[wrenchbender]

That old Autocar in post 16 made me think of you wrenchbender.:drinkup

Yep, that would be right up my alley. I just wish my funding could keep up with my appetite for old Iorn.lol


Hey Joey, You might want to try a little farther east and south n git yoself one -o- these Redneck gals.lol They is da bomb deys can fix Cats,weld,hunt and go fishing heck man they almost don't need a man :rolleyes: except fer reproducing lol.

[ferrology]

I have to confess had not heard of this forum, this thread is where a hunter of iron dinosaurs belongs!:notworthy
Everyday I see better stuff than what I drive going by on trailers headed for the junkyard, not much "old iron" is being saved due to the turnover in real estate and people always running around looking for an "eyesore" to whine about. That said I take the time to dismantle appliances and power tools and put the copper/aluminum and hardware aside, you never know when a switch, hinge or brace out out of one might come in handy. One reason to stay faithful to one particular model or brand is interchangeable parts. I live down the street and downstream from where the waterpowered Linn Tractor plant stood until a fire in 1982 (some annexes/outbuildings remain), parts/bits and pieces were scattered in fill and rip-rap they did around the village, plus they ran their own "boneyard" where they dismantled machines for used parts or chopped them into power units, burnt off the cabs, etc. that I tried to excevate as much as I could. And then there were sticky-fingered employees, whose basements, attics and garages I have tried getting the "clean-out" jobs for over the years as they died or moved away. About every post or piece of channel steel around this village originated from the Linn Co., the sheet steel liners out of dump boxes cover a lot of old cess pools. They also moved a lot of buildings around here with them. In fact the biggest obstacle I have had locally with collecting Linn history, is that until recently they had been so everyday (jaded) no one cared about it. After a few collectors pay outragous prices for them at auction, now everyone is hoping to find something around here that they can put on ebay. I am trying to complete a partial roster of original as well as current owners, to preserve what is left, and also so when I get sent a photo by someone like King-of- Obsolete, I can guess the model, vintage and location and maybe ownership, I tend to think of each machine as an individual, same as with steam locomotives, so if you have spotted a particular Linn, or heard about one years ago, or want to know what were used in your area, just shout and I'll tell you what I know. I also try and identify parts for people, and even the longshot of finding spare parts for those in need (no commission - I just want to save what is left from being scrapped). :Banghead
Attached pics (admit have size issues) what the Linn I have looked like new (1942), John Belfield in Melbourne, Australia has the only complete example today, and what mine looked like when it arrived, having been converted from a C5 to a C6 (front wheel drive, transfer case and hydraulically lowered rear wheeled axle that trailed, not driven) in ths late 1940s. Last image one culled from an adv. on ebay.
I put a blurb about Linn on wikipedia, basically he was a dog and pony show man who wanted to hit the off-railroad towns but found roads impassable, and began experimenting with gas and steam driven vehicles before getting involved with Alvin Lombard. Lombard was not really the "first" to build a crawler but the first commercial builder, distributor and servicing of them in the field. Linn found these crawlers were too big so began downsizing them for normal highway use, but being "sole sales agent" for Lombard at that point, Lombard claimed him as an employee and claimed propietary rights, this led to a lifelong feud and Linn went south, traveled through at least 13 states with his show but ended up here in Morris, NY where there was waterpower, investors, a desperate need for an induustry of some kind (when sheep and textiles were big before Reconstruction in the south, had been center of the Hops industry after that) and centrally located between NYC and Upstate manufacturing cities like Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, etc. where most of his components would come from. Plus there was clearly the same need for good roads (nearest rails about 8 miles away), a potential market for farm tractors and logging activity in the Adirondacks (north) and Catskills (south). A note about logging activity, except for clear cut acid wood operators during WW1, the companies leased or owned land managed for long term yields, they skidded logs out to the haul roads with single hitch horses, then loaded them onto sleighs at the banking decks,then assembled them at central areas into the 10 to 20 long sled trains Linns would haul down out to the rails (a Linn haul road was far cheaper than railroad building/equipping/operation) or rivers, roads were bridged over swamps and creeks with corduroy log roads, the road surfaces were iced with water at night, up to 3' depth, so the only enviromentally harmful aspect was when the logs bumped into riverbanks and bottoms going downstream. Now they have sold most of that land to the state, "forever wild" no matter what happens (the 1950 blowdown salvage was the last "big show" for all kinds of pre-WW2 and surplus army equipment in the Adirondacks, with much iron abandonned when done, since junked, burnt or buried by the state), and instead our timber products come from rainforests in other parts of the world being stripped bare. Ice roads are believed to have been developed in the Michigan woods c. 1880's, then of course after they began exploring the far north and hauling with outfits like King Of Obsolete has, they began a program of maintaining "ice roads" up there.

[wrenchbender]

ferrology, that's a very good post with lots of info, your passion for the Linn is very apparent. Now just how we become attached to trucks,equipment or a certain brand of these is beyond me. But it happens and can't be controlled. It's a fever,sickness or maybe a cure but whatever it is I like it. Thanx for joining HEF we look foward to more post on the Linn.

[Steve Frazier]

You guys ought to check out theAmerican Truck Historical Society (http://aths.org/). It's dedicated to the preservation of old trucks and trucking history. I've been a member for a long time now, they have a nice magazine that they publish. The classified section alone is worth the membership dues!

[mag6000]

Great info ferrology. Thanks. I wish I could have gotten better pics of the Linn but there were very few good angles with all the other objects crowded around it.

Here are a few of a neat little tractor with a transverse mounted engine. This unit has a huge winch hanging off the rear.

[mag6000]

This one looks like an early multi-engine pulling tractor that someone outfitted with oil field rigging ;). How about those fancy outriggers!

[Tn Bulldog]

Some Awsome Pics yall esp of the ole AC Mack's & Mack's in general ;)




never knew the Pettibone made a grader thats 1st one ive ever seen id like to see it up close . i bet the ole jimmy motor will scream i mean sing to ya ;) :D



anymore pics of Mack's & Autocars yall?


& as steve said the ATHS Is a great org im joing it myself come this week as i still have my dad's & granddad's ole B model Mack (& its my namesake too ya i was named after a truck ;) :cool2: :D :drinkup )



later yall


Bulldog

[Super Roel]

Very nice pictures specially the Pettibone Muliken grader , we have in The Netherlands even a Pettibone Muliken grader in army paints .

[Countryboy]

Welcome to HEF Super Roel! :drinkup

[King of Obsolete]

i'm giving away a "free" linn tractor hat on my monthly raffle. they are made in new york just down the road from where the linn factory is.

just email me at

kingofobsolete@xplornet.com

to enter, email in the entry.

thansk

[easygoing808]

The crane chassis does look like an Autocar. I wonder what the fuel consumption is like with that Waukesha. Here are some for the grader fans.

Just acquired a Pettibone 402 speed grader with a DRXB Hercules diesel engine.
Thank`s for the Pictures. Will have take a trip and look this one over.

[tonka]

Wow i just saw this thread, i worked for the company that did the demo on the last wooden derrick standing in taft. It stood at the Chevron, Section 1a-119 oil lease, near Midway rd and highway 119. I also did a lot of work, abandoning old wells in the Taft, Mericopa, and Mckittrick areas.... wow this brings back memorys!!!!