Butterfield & Son
The J.I. CASE Dealership at Irricana and Beiseker, Alberta
It seems counterintuitive to open the annals of a tractor dealership with a story about horses. Nevertheless, that is where this tale begins, with Jim and Linda Butterfield riding horseback to school in Irricana in the 1950s and 60s, pausing to collect the neighbour kid, also on horseback, along the way. The horses were stabled in the small school barn for the day. When school ended, the Butterfield siblings collected them and headed for home. Horses turned out to be a through line in Jim’s life, and we will circle back to them later.
William (Bill) and Isobel Butterfield were originally from Saskatchewan. Bill had worked as a mechanic on a ranch near Brooks for a few years. He and Isobel made the move to Irricana and purchased the Red Head Service station located on the old route of Highway 9, just outside of Irricana. The station had a coffee shop attached to it. The Butterfields did not run the coffee shop, but Linda recalled local farmers arriving every morning for an hour or two of coffee and visiting. Farm work never ends as anyone associated with agriculture knows well, but Jim notes that “there was no hustle and bustle mentality.” The farmers saw no reason why a ritual of connecting with neighbours could not be incorporated into the demanding work waiting for them for the rest of the day.
The service station was also attached to a Case tractor dealership. The Butterfields received the above certificate from Case, watermarked with the Old Abe logo, recognizing their business in 1956. The dealership sold new stock and maintained and repaired equipment, so a typical day involved both selling and servicing machinery. Most of the customers were local, and they were frequently stressed farmers who needed quick fixes made to essential machinery. Jim recalled that the interruptions from customers stopping for gas were constant. “I got more done after supper.” There was only one other employee, and Jim said that as a teenager, his job was to repair a never-ending pile of tires. The original shop was not a luxurious place; it was heated with a lone oil stove.
The 1950s saw a time of innovation for Case. In 1953, they introduced the 500 model. Case was incorporating a new fuel into their product line up: diesel. The 400, the 350 and the 600 models arrived in regular succession as the advantages of the new fuel caught on and horsepower increased. Another Case invention that farmers appreciated was the front-end loader. The 320 was Case’s crossbred between a construction vehicle and an agricultural product. Introduced in 1957, it was a combination of a tractor and a backhoe. As soon as farmers realized what the implications of the new appendage meant for their work, Jim observed that “It was a must.”
The 1960s would see more adjustments to the way farmers needed to farm and the kind of products they were interested in using. The tractors that Case was bringing in the 1960s reflected changes in safety and comfort for farmers. The 930 and 1030 models were four by four tractors, and they had cabs. The Minneapolis Moline’s Comfortactor had been an expensive and famous flop a generation before, but the children and grandchildren of the farmers who had turned up their noses at comfortable seats and a cab had no problem making the transition. Jim said that a cab on tractors and combines was the biggest invention, but air conditioning, heat and radios soon followed.
Tractors were also getting bigger because farms were getting bigger, and smaller models of choring tractors like the 630s fell out of fashion. All the large grain farmers were interested in large tractors.
Linda worked for the Royal Bank of Canada. In the 1970s, the RBC allowed women to request employment transfers for the first time in history. Linda was sent to Hay River in the Northwest Territories. Jim spent one winter at SAIT, and then spent four years working on the Brazeau Reservoir in Drayton Valley. He was working for Finning in British Columbia when Bill got injured in 1965. Jim came home to help with the family business and never left. And it was a successful business – the Butterfields had outgrown their original location years before they eventually moved from Irricana to Beiseker.
The new building at Beiseker was a tremendous improvement from the old facility at Irricana; Jim pointed out that with the giant new tractors Case was manufacturing, they would not have fit in the old location anyway because the service bays were not big enough. The new building boasted a spacious shop with more areas to work and a large and professional parts desk. Jim did not miss the interruptions from the gas station at all, however he says that stoppages were a constant part of the day anyway, “especially if there was a panic on.” A beautifully restored vintage 1928 Case tractor was featured in the showroom, a salute to the long history of the company.
The grand opening in 1975 was a huge event for the community. Beef on a bun was served at the parts counter, a local radio station was there to cover the big happening, and executive A. H. Douglas from Regina Case was on hand. Douglas later sent the Butterfields a letter congratulating them on the success of the event and on “probably one of the best facilities of any Case Dealer in our branch area.”
The business was a huge local employer; Jim estimates that he had eight to ten staff working for him. Creating opportunities for apprenticeships was also a big part of business, with local teenagers getting their start working at Butterfields.
While the business was productive, Jim emphasizes how important it was for him to have things to focus on aside from work. His thoughts for other business owners are, “You HAVE to have something else besides that business to think about. You can’t function with one thing.” And lest you think that Jim was merely a mild-mannered tractor dealership owner, you should know that one of the things he was interested in was hunting. The eight-foot-tall grizzly towering over his living room would indicate that Jim was not a person to mess with – anyone who wanted to complain about their warranty might have thought twice if they knew about that bear! Jim spent many hours on horseback hunting trips in places as remote as Alaska – which was where he got the bear. However, he notes that hunting big cats was his favourite. A regret for Jim was a planned trip to hunt leopard and buffalo in Tanzania that had to be cancelled because of a tense political situation.
Jim operated the dealership until 1991. Isobel and Bill had both passed away in the 1980s, and circumstances were changing. Jim made the decision to sell the dealership; it is now located in High River. Several factors influenced the decision to step away from the business. The markets had been bad in the 1980s and interest rates were exceedingly high. Jim did not have a mortgage payment on his building, but carrying second hand stock was expensive, and the used equipment was just not moving. Farmers in the Beiseker area preferred to purchase new equipment, meaning that Jim had to haul the used stock to sales at Langdon, Rimbey or Camrose in hopes of off loading it.
The other change looming for agriculture as the 1980s ended – and every other part of life and business – was the advent of computers. Computerized mechanics were a tough transition for the older employees who had never been trained to work on them. Computers were going to be doing everything within the span of a decade, requiring specialized people and training. Jim realized that he was not interested in doing the upgrades necessary to make sure that his business could successfully make that transition.
There was another factor. The horses that started this story were a lifelong interest for Jim. With the dealership gone, he was free to focus on them, and while he did some other jobs, he went into cutting horses for the next three decades. “It got to be quite a business, fifty brood mares a year,” he reports. While the cutting horse business is currently dwindling, and every year it gets more expensive, Jim spent many rewarding years with his horses. Linda eventually returned to Alberta from the Northwest Territories and now lives in Calgary. When Jim and Linda were talking about the farmers meeting up at the coffee shop at the Red Head Service station in the 1950s, Jim said, ‘Some of that [going for a morning coffee] is coming back. Retired at sixty-five, what the hell else are you going to do?”
When asked about predictions for agriculture and the future, Jim and Linda talked about climate change, and how farmers may have to modify their practices to suit a drier and windier environment. Jim noted that urban dwellers are more disconnected from where their food comes from, even if it is grown just kilometres away from their homes. Whatever people need or do not need in the future, they will always need to eat, and food producers are not going anywhere.
Jim and Linda took me to the barn to see Jim’s vintage Case 630. Originally from Manitoba, it is small by today’s standards, but Jim uses the classic tractor for choring, and he remarks that it is easy to work on. As we made our way towards the barn, there was a sudden drumroll of hoofbeats, and four horses came flying up the hill. Horse kisses and requests for treats were a perfect way for the story of the Butterfield Case Dealership to end, with the horses stealing the show.
Thank you to the Butterfield Family for their dealership history and to Shelly McElroy for preparing this story. Thanks also to the Historical Society of Alberta for their funding support.
