Engineer Helped To Pioneer the Ever-Present Loader Backhoe
Elton Long, mechanical engineer who lead the design team that developed the first American-made, integrated loader backhoe, died April 6 in Burlington, Iowa. He was 81 years old.
Early in his career, Long designed heavy equipment for American Tractor Co. of Churubusco, Ind. When Case Corp., Racine, Wis., acquired ATC in 1957, Long and his colleagues were in the midst of designing a new type of machine that would eventually become the bread and butter of contractor fleets around the world. After joining Case, Long rivaled the efforts of Joseph Cyril Bamford, founder of U.K.-based JCB. Though heavily debated, historians say JCB produced the world's first fully integrated unit in 1954, the JCB Mark 1. Shortly after the ATC acquisition, Case shipped the first American-made unit, Model 320, on Feb. 26, 1957. Prior to the JCB and Case designs, loader backhoes were for years bucket implements rigged haphazardly on farm tractors, with parts sold and warranted separately.