Illinois Thresher Company

From the fifth 1913 picture

A few days after I saw this picture, I saw the tenth steam tractor that they made, which was built in 1916, running at the Sycamore Steam Show. The horsepower is 20 or 22 depending on which source you read. The company made 63 steam tractors by 1920. There are only six left.(SmokStak1)
#102, a lap seam 20HP
#110, a lap seam 22
#135, a butt strap 20
#147, a butt strap 20
#152, a butt strap 25
#163, a butt strap 25(SmokStak2)

The caption spelled the presidents name incorrectly. It is Rumely. He was the son of Meinard Rumely who made Rumely OilPulls in LaPorte, IN. (VintageMachinery) Bill Rumely tooled up for steam tractors about when steam tractor manufactures such as J.I. Case were tooling up for internal combustion tractors. His own Dad had the sense to produce internal combustion tractors instead of steam tractors.

<update>

The above paragraph is wrong! I left it in these notes to provide context for this comment made by "Unknown."

I stumbled upon this posting when looking for information about The Illinois Thresher Company and was impelled point out an error which I would hate to see taken as fact. William Rumely along with his brother Joseph, two of Meinrad Rumely's several children, were the ones most actively engaged in the family business...M. Rumely and Co of LaPorte, Indiana. Meinrad died in 1904 at the age of 72 and had been retired for a few years prior. There never were any internal combustion tractors produced by M. Rumely Co. during Meinrad's lifetime and there is no evidence they were even being considered.
Around 1909, Joseph Rumely's son, Edward A. Rumely (William's nephew), gained control of the company and stared development of the OilPull tractor which was on the market by 1910 or 11. He also implemented an aggressive expansion of the company which bankruptcy by 1913 and total loss of the family's control of the business. William Rumely, who evidently had some assets of his own, tried to recreate a company like the one he knew...producing steam traction engines and wooden threshing machines. Granted, the writing was already on the wall as far as that product line went, but the statement "his own Dad had the sense to produce internal combustion tractors instead of steam tractors" is simply not true. The funeral services were well over for Meinrad before the company ever looked into internal combustion.
Edward's failures, as you might imagine, did not sit well with the rest of the Rumely family and caused a rift. William blamed Edward for the loss of his father's company and likely associated the internal combustion tractor with the insolvency. It is easy to second guess all of this 100 plus years down the road, but at the time, knowing what he did, William's actions in starting afresh with a new company producing what had been a successful line of goods just a couple of years prior, seemed justified. His engines and threshers were pretty much the same as what had been produced by M. Rumely , but with some improvements.
The reorganized Advance-Rumely Company went on to have great success with Edward's OilPull tractor and even produced an improved steam tractor of the latest design in 1915. The Illinois Thresher Company never really got going in a big way and their lack of product development and conservative approach to business lead to their failing in opposition to Edward's far thinking and over expansion lead to the loss of the family firm. Too bad they both couldn't have found a happy medium.

</update>

The Northern Illinois Steam Power Club, which sponsors the annual show, bought the tractor in 2003. They got the engine operational for the 2006 show. But it needed more repairs. As with many repair jobs, once they started taking it apart to fix what they knew was wrong, they found more problems. And when you go after the new problems, you find even more problems, etc. The repair work was extensive including using the Elgin Community College's 3D printer to make molds to pour new bearings. It came back from the shop in 2014 and got a fresh coat of paint. (2016 Show Program)

The first two videos below are during the Parade of Power. The third video is when I noticed it was leaving its "parking place."

They had a display boiler with cutouts so that I can confirm these tractors use fire-tube boilers like those used in steam locomotives. In contrast, stationary boilers in modern coal-fired electric generating plants use water-tube boilers.

During my research I also came across a thresher made by the company. They were made with wood so even though they made a lot of threshers (as opposed to tractors), not many have lasted.

Update: Did they convert to internal combustion tractors or is this Illinois Super-Drive Tractor [Wisconsin Historical Society] made by another company?