North Yarmouth Historical Society

Description

North Yarmouth’s first town tractor “the Cletrac,” slowly makes its way through the snow along West Pownal Road below Paine Road, heading toward Pownal in this 1940s photograph. Purchased in the 1930s, the tractor was equipped with a v-plow and wings and was run by local men hired by the town—one driver and two men operating the wings in the rear, which were cranked up and down by hand. The tractor went slowly at 1 mph, and if it encountered snow that was too high, the crew simply re-routed the road around the drift until the spring. New crews replaced each other in 8-hour shifts, working until all town roads were clear.

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