OSHKOSH snowplows: W-700-15 (USA 1943). Manufactured by Klauer Manufacturing Company (Dubuque, Iowa)
Oshkosh Corporation, formerly Oshkosh Truck, is an American industrial company that designs and builds specialty trucks, military vehicles, truck bodies, airport fire apparatus, and access equipment. The corporation also owns Pierce Manufacturing, a fire apparatus manufacturer in Appleton, Wisconsin, and JLG Industries, a leading manufacturer of lift equipment, including aerial lifts, boom lifts, scissor lifts, telehandlers and low-level access lifts.
Based in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the company employs approximately 15,000 people around the world at 130 facilities in 24 countries. It is organized in four primary business groups: access equipment, defense, fire and emergency, and commercial.
Founded in 1917 as the Wisconsin Duplex Auto Company, the company was created to build a severe-duty four-wheel-drive truck. After the first prototype was built, the company began to develop rapidly. This first four-wheel-drive truck, known today as “Old Betsy”, is still owned by Oshkosh Corporation and housed in the new Global Headquarters building in Oshkosh. The vehicle still runs and is used frequently in demonstrations and parades.
The first mass-produced truck was the 2-ton Model A, with seven produced in 1918. The 3.5-ton Model B and 5-ton Model F followed. The Model TR, introduced in 1933, was a diversification for the company and was the first rubber tired earthmover ever built.
Klauer Manufacturing Company was founded by Peter KLAUER and incorporated in 1904. In 1870 the company began operations from a small frame building at 1236 Iowa Street.
Between 1928 and 1934, the Klauer Company revolutionized snow removal with the development of a rotary snow remover named the “Snogo.” A specially designed snowplow for heavy road equipment, Snogos were named through a nation-wide contest. Four hundred horsepower motors enabled the machine to remove 2,400 tons of snow per hour.
In October 1936 the City of New York placed an order in the amount of $476,125 to purchase 42 of the machines. It was believed at the time that this contract was one of the largest, if not the largest, ever received by any Dubuque manufacturer. They have seen service at Denver’s Stapleton Airport and Chicago’s busy O’Hare Airport. During terrible snowstorms in the eastern United States during 1978-1979, four Snogos were loaded aboard jumbo C-5A transports in Cedar Rapids for quick shipment.
Wausau-Everest, a equipment company, announced that a SNOGO snowblower had been listed on the NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES. The 1932 truck-mounted unit is located at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The snowblower kept Trail Ridge Road and other park roads open for tourists and nature enthusiasts for decades. The unit was one of 39 such snowblowers manufactured by Klauer Manufacturing Company from 1928 through 1934, and is believed to be the oldest SNOGO in existence. Wausau Equipment Company, Inc. purchased SNOGO from Klauer in 2000.
