The Ottawa Manufacturing Co. (as it was known when the Mule Team was produced) was also known under the names: Union Foundries,  Warner Manufacturing and Warner Fence. They had been in business since July 1904 in Ottawa, Kansas and were already very well known for their hit & miss flywheel engines and log saws as well as windmills, fencing, gas station pumps & lifts, refrigeration units, brake shoes, tree & brush saws, tractor mounted PTO driven saw rigs, etc. etc. They were in business nearly 50 years and made a lot of things! They had their own foundry and a very extensive metal working shop. They had a sister company called Ottawa Steel Products that continued after Ottawa Manufacturing went out of business. OSP is gone now as well but the only connection between the two was they were both owned by Warner family members.

After the War, flywheel gas engine sales had all but ended and Ottawa Manufacturing was looking to stay successful in farm equipment. They continued to offer log saws and brush cutters powered now by smaller, lighter Wisconsin engines including the Ottawa Buzzmaster. Also, like many companies in the 1950's they were looking to capitalize on the demand for small tractors used for "truck farming" and Victory Gardens.

It all starts with the Jaques (pronounced ja-kwez) Mighty Mite

The Jaques Mighty Mite from my research had been built since at least 1947 although some believe it was around as early as the 1930's. The Model 10 Mighty Mite was usually a Briggs and Stratton model ZZ. Jaques had several other models including the model 12 with a 8.5 HP Wisconsin AEN, and Model 14 with 2 cylinder Wisconsin's. The hood was all steel, and totally different from the later Frazer and Ottawa's. VERY late Mighty Mites have been seen with the Ottawa style hood and there's some question as to whether Ottawa finished these final orders for Jaques. The Jaques tractors had the model/serial tag in the center of the dashboard.

The Mighty Mite used a Borg Warner T-92, 3 speed transmission. I have heard of some Mighty Mites with early Kohler, Hercules or Crosley engines but I've never seen any proof that these were factory installed items. It’s unclear exactly how long the Mighty Mite was in production but I would guess 1946 -1948 only. The Mighty Mite appears to have been sold before the Frazer Model T, during the Frazer production and after the Frazer production stopped until Jaques sold everything to Ottawa in early 1949 to focus on augers and underground utility boring machines.
Jaques is actually still in business in Texas but under a different name, with different owners and have NO links to their past.
Out of the three companies who sold this tractor, the Jaques Mighty Mite seems to be the easiest to find. I have serial numbers that span nearly 3000 tractors.

The Frazer Model T experiment

In 1948 Frazer Farm Equipment (a division of the Graham-Paige-Frazer automobile company) decided to build a small farm tractor that was to be named the “Model T” because it was expected to be the agricultural equivalent to the Model T Ford. Some Frazers had tags on the outside of the right frame rail. Others had the model/serial stamped into the frame rail.

The Jaques Power Saw Company from Denison Texas, who had built a pretty successful tractor themselves called the Jaques Mighty Mite would supply the tractor for Frazer. Jaques previously had built a saw attachment for the now famous, big, yellow Frazer B-1-6 rototillers and would now manufacture the Mighty Mite tractor chassis, then ship them to Frazer in Troy, Pennsylvania where the hood (if ordered) transmission and engine would be installed and final assembly would take place. The engine used was a Simar (Swiss designed) 2 cycle engine. The same engine was also being used in the Graham-Paige B1-6 and B-1-7 rototillers. I've also heard of a Frazer built engine but never seen one. The Jaques-Frazer Model T used a 2 speed hi/low transmission attached to the rear of the engine, which was then coupled to the T-92 Borg Warner 3 speed tranny. This gave a total of 6 forward and 2 reverse gears. It weighed just over 1000#, and was available in 1948 only from my research. 

The tractor used a rounded aluminum hood which was supposedly built from the bottom of the wing fuel tanks on WWII surplus fighter planes. The Model T tractors are very hard to find, it’s safe to assume not a whole lot were made. I have heard numbers of only 25-50 being produced but it could be more.

Frazer sold the Model T in their auto dealerships just like they did the Rototiller but the tractor wasn’t nearly as successful as planned. By the end of 1948 the Model T was no longer available. Early in 1949 Graham Paige Motors Corporation decided to sell off the Frazer Farm Equipment division to the Mast-Foos Corporation who decided not to sell the Model T tractor.

Ottawa takes over...

 In early 1949 the Ottawa Manufacturing Co. from Ottawa Kansas must have made Jaques an offer they couldn't refuse and purchased interests in the tractor from Jaques Power Saw, as well as all old parts, toolings, unsold inventory, etc. Ottawa continued to build several of their own versions of the Ottawa Mule Team tractor which almost mirrored the Mighty Mite with a few changes.

These included the Model 15 with a 8 HP Briggs Model 23 engine (the Model 23 replaced the ZZ at Briggs in 1949), Model 15A powered with a 8 ½ HP AEN or AENS Wisconsin engine (the AENS replaced the AEN when stellite exhaust valves were added), Model 16 with 2 cylinder 11 HP Wisconsin Model TE engine, and the Model 17 with a 2 cylinder 13 HP Wisconsin Model TF engine. The Model 17 differed from the others with 24" spoked rear wheels compared to 16" stamped steel rear wheels on the other 3 models. The models 16 & 17 also didn't have the rear "dashboard" part of the hood to accomodate the larger engine. The Mule Team started with the T-92 transmission and evetually changed to a heavy bellhousing and T-96 transmission.

It’s also interesting to note that the Ottawa Manufacturing Co. went to using the “rounded front hoods” as was offered on the Frazer Model T. Ottawa produced these hoods in steel, aluminum and a mix of the two although I doubt the choice of material was an option. A few of the Ottawa Mule Teams even had the steel "Mighty Mite" hoods. I assume they used whatever parts they had available at the time of production. The hood was actually a $16.95 option as the price list shows and I've found several tractors that never had hoods from the factory.

Mr. E.L. Warner, the owner of Ottawa Manufacturing died of a heart attack in February of 1951 while on a business trip in California and sadly Eastern Kansas was devasted by a huge flood in July 1951 that put Ottawa Manufacturing out of business forever. Every warehouse, office building, spare part and unsold inventory went under 45 feet of muddy water as the Marais Des Cygnes River emptied into Ottawa and many other Kansas towns that month. Ottawa Manufacturing never re-opened and so far I haven't found what happened to all the records and unused parts inventory. They likely all went to the dump with the flood debris or were sold for scrap. Like many post-war tractors it only survived a 6 year run between 3 companies. Many of the original Ottawa Manufacturing buildings are still standing but have been vacant since the 1980's. I wish I had the cash to buy the buildings myself before they fall down from disrepair.


From my Ottawa Mule Team registry and comparing tractor serial numbers and production dates of original engines I'd guess around 250 Ottawa Mule Teams were built before The 1951 flood destroyed Ottawa Manufacturing.

A BIG Thanks to Mark Jackson & Joe Lofink who I've learned a lot of this information from.