Early Gas Tractors & Preservation Clubs
As heavy internal-combustion prairie tractors began challenging steam traction engines around 1910, the Buffalo Pitts Company introduced its own line of heavy gasoline and kerosene tractors—including distinctive three-wheel and four-wheel designs—while continuing steam production.
Between 1910 and 1915, Buffalo Pitts marketed heavy-duty two- and three-cylinder gas tractors aimed at large-scale wheat breaking in the Dakotas and western Canada. Today, only a handful of original Buffalo Pitts internal-combustion tractors and fewer than 100 steam traction engines and rollers are known to survive worldwide.
Surviving Buffalo Pitts engines and Niagara threshers are exhibited at major heritage shows including the New York Steam Engine Association (Alexander and Canandaigua, NY), Rough and Tumble Engineers Historical Association (Kinzers, PA), Midwest Old Threshers Reunion (Mount Pleasant, IA), and Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion (Rollag, MN).