Edward Drott founded Drott Tractor Company in his home town of Butternut, Wisconsin, in 1916. It was moved to Wausau, Wisconsin, in 1923. In 1924, it was reorganized as Hi-Way Service Corporation and relocated again, this time to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hi-Way Service designed a snow plow as a joint venture with Wausau Iron Works. Hi-Way Service became Drott Manufacturing Company, and returned to Wausau.
In 1962, Drott purchased American rights to the Yumbo hydraulic backhoe produced by Sicam of France. In 1968, Tenneco Corporation purchased Drott and made it a division of Case Corporation (Collection 227), which it also owned.
Shuttlelift, Inc. (collection 1369) acquired the Carrydeck line of industrial hydraulic cranes from Drott Manufacturing Company (Collection 376). Shuttlelift was acquired by Marine Travelift, who sold the Carrydeck line to The Manitowoc Company, Inc. (Collection 15) on January 5, 2007.
Model nomenclature:
Drott was the sole supplier of loader attachments for International Harvester crawler tractors in the 1950s, until International introduced their own line of integral loaders. It developed the first multi-purpose bucket; dubbed the 4-in-1 bucket, it gets its name from its four functions: Dozer, clamshell, bucket and scraper. The 4-in-1-line became the basis for International Harvester's crawler loader line.
Drott model numbers had a prefix that matched the model number for the tractor; i.e., the TD6 used a 6K3 loader. An “A” suffix indicated a later improved version.
Sources: Marathon Country History.
Note Author: Thomas Berry
