Five Decades of an Equipment Icon “Unleashed”

Cyril and Louis Keller

Bobcat Company Celebrates 50th Anniversary in 2008

Being a true innovator typically requires exceptional ingenuity or a strong dose of entrepreneurial spirit. If you’re not the first to come up with or do something, you’d better be prepared to at least risk failure in perfecting it. When these qualities are combined, it’s possible to create something truly different, something special — a genuine original. That is exactly what happened when two blacksmith-inventor brothers from Minnesota joined forces with a family-owned manufacturer in North Dakota five decades ago. They invented. They took risks. They perfected. And this year, Bobcat Company marks 50 years of the partnership which changed the way we work and gave birth to compact industrial equipment as we know it.

Amazingly, if not for a very specific series of events, a multi-billion-dollar industry might be a fraction of its size, and the Bobcat® brand itself might not exist at all. But luck and timing played a large factor in what has become a remarkable success story, despite challenges along the way. The same ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit continue on, and now one of the most recognized names in many industrial trades is known for those very characteristics.

Although the Bobcat anniversary theme — “50 Years Unleashed” — is as much about our future as it is our past, the company’s history has always played a significant role. And it makes for a wonderful tale.

Simple Problem, Groundbreaking Solution

It was the summer of 1956 when turkey farmer Eddie Velo approached brothers Cyril and Louis Keller, who ran a blacksmith shop in Rothsay, Minn. The Kellers had been in business together for about three years, remanufacturing plowshares and fixing other iron implements for local farmers.

Minnesota turkey farmer Eddie Velo is pictured on the original Keller loader.

One day Velo came into the shop and sat down in an old chair in the corner. Louis Keller took off his welding helmet, sat down next to him and said, “Eddie, what’s wrong?” “Well,” Velo answered, “this turkey business would be wonderful if it weren’t for the cleaning.”

Velo had five turkey farms outside of town, with 10 barns in all. When it came time to clean them out and get ready for the next shipment of turkeys, all his workers would quit. As one might guess, using a pitchfork to clear tons of turkey manure was just too grueling for most people to do it for very long. Velo said he needed a machine that could replace his workers and clean out his barns quickly, but still be light enough to be lifted up to work on the upper level of his barns.

The Kellers believed they could help and went to work on some concepts. They knew that a traditional tractor wouldn’t get the job done. Anything like that would be too heavy and too clumsy to get around poles and in and out of corners.

The process of creation took them through a few scenarios and designs. After months of effort, they delivered a three-wheeled loader to Velo early in 1957 and he put it to immediate use. It was lightweight, maneuverable and powerful enough to get the work done. There was nothing else like it. This early loader didn’t look like those of today. It had two drive wheels and a rear caster wheel. It was powered by a set of pulleys and belts, but the Kellers eventually improved the design and gave it a clutch-drive transmission. In 1957, the Kellers patented the loader design and produced more. Eventually, six Keller loaders were working in the area.

Although there was an obvious market for the loader, the Kellers didn’t have the means to mass-produce it. Luck, timing and relationships would soon enter the picture. The Kellers’ uncle, Anton Christianson, sold farm implements for Melroe Manufacturing Company, a business from Gwinner, N.D., that had made a nice business of selling harroweeders and windrow pickups. Christianson knew what the Keller brothers were producing and recognized how much a production line and established distributor network could benefit them.

Partnership and Mass Production

Melroe Manufacturing Company was founded by E.G. Melroe in 1947. By the time the Kellers hooked up with the company, E.G. had died (1955) and the business was being run by his four sons — Roger, Lester, Irving, and Cliff — and his son-in-law, Eugene Dahl.

Pictured is the loader that Cyril and Louis Keller demonstrated at the Melroe booth at the 1958 Minnesota State Fair.

One day in August 1958, Lester Melroe was visiting Christianson on a sales call. Christianson suggested that he look at the Kellers’ loader and see if it was something the Melroes would be interested in taking on. Les Melroe immediately saw potential in the loader, so much so that he offered the Kellers a spot in the Melroe Manufacturing booth at the Minnesota State Fair the following month. They decided together that, depending on how things went at the fair, the Kellers might join the Melroe brothers, which would enable them to mass-produce and sell the machine.

The Melroes were immediately impressed. By the third day of the Fair, thousands of visitors had seen the machine, the Melroes and Kellers had handed out hundreds of pieces of literature, and Cyril and Louis Keller had taken turns running the machine and talking with customers. Thanks to this enthusiastic response to the loader, the Kellers and Melroes struck a deal, and the Kellers set up shop with the Melroes in Gwinner.

Early production models would be called the Melroe Self-Propelled Loader. The basic Keller loader concept was viable, but it needed additional engineering and development before it could be mass-produced. Melroe employees were already occupied making windrow pickups and harroweeders, so the Kellers, with some help from Melroe engineers, built more loaders with caster wheels and clutch-drive systems. No one knew it yet, but the compact equipment industry was now in business.

From Three Wheels to Four

The first Melroe Self-Propelled Loader was the M60 model. It was quickly succeeded by an improved version — the M200 model — with a more robust lift-arm assembly and an updated two-cylinder engine.

E.G. Melroe (foreground) is pictured with his four sons (background, left to right): Roger, Lester, Irving and Clifford.

Unfortunately, the new design was good for turkey farmers but not for the additional out-of-doors uses the Melroes wanted to explore. Louis Keller, Cliff Melroe (president at the time) and engineer Gordy Irwin went to work on a machine with four-wheel traction. They recognized that it was the only way to maintain momentum and continue to attract interest in the machine.

The team decided that a 70-30 weight ratio would enable the loader to do a variety of things, including “skid-steer” for maximum maneuverability. When empty, they calculated, the machine should have 70 percent of its weight on the back end and 30 percent on the front. Loaded, this ratio should be reversed for the best maneuverability and traction. The original M200’s length was also extended by six inches, providing more stability while still enabling the loader to turn within its own width, a huge selling point. Properly balanced, the loader would skid on its tires when turning — not enough to wear the tires, but enough to make it maneuverable. The improved M400 design, introduced in 1960, formed the mechanical blueprint for years to come, and the 70-30 weight ratio is still a critical design element today.

Popularity and Versatility Grow

The Bobcat loader faced technical challenges over the years — some which nearly stalled the project altogether. But Bobcat engineers continued to find ways to improve the loader and push forward. By the latter part of 1962, the “Bobcat” was a durable machine. It was much different from its three-wheeled predecessor, but still dedicated to the concept of replacing a worker (or several). It had a reputation for making work quick and easy in farming operations and on construction sites, as well as in mines and other markets. Melroe Manufacturing Company had found additional applications for the versatile Bobcat machine, and its attachments were beginning to come of age.

Clark Equipment Company added the Bobcat brand to its lineup in 1969.

The 1958 original Keller loader product literature promoted several attachments, including a snow blower they had invented. With the Bobcat loader in full production, additional attachments were added and the line quickly expanded. Soon, the need to quickly mount and detach them from the front of the machine became obvious. So in 1970, Bobcat introduced the Bob-Tach™ system, which, with some minor updates over the years, still exists to this day as an industry standard.

Some attachments grew to be such an important piece of the business that they drove machine manufacturing changes to fit additional markets. Now, Bobcat offers nearly 400 models of 80 types of attachments designed for hundreds of applications.

First a Machine, Now an Industry

The company known first for the “Melroe Self-Propelled Loader” and then the “skid-steer” has become much more than that over the last several years. Bobcat Company is now a $2 billion organization, with more than 600 U.S. dealer locations, another 300 internationally, and 10 different product lines. Bobcat continues to break new ground with innovations that rock the industry.

Over the years, Bobcat Company has developed a long list of “industry firsts,” some of which other manufacturers have adopted (with Bobcat Company’s approval) and made industry standards, particularly in the area of safety.

The Bobcat all-wheel steer loader remains an industry exclusive, allowing minimal ground disturbance on sensitive surfaces.

Today’s Bobcat engineers make their mark, but it was the Kellers and Melroes who started it all. In 1969, the Melroe family sold their company to Clark Equipment Company of Buchanan, Mich. The Keller brothers — Louis and Cyril — remained part of the organization for a period of time. Louis worked in product development until 1970 and Cyril trained equipment salesmen for 22 years, even founding “Bobcat Bootcamp,” which still exists.

Clark Equipment Company sold out to Ingersoll-Rand in 1995. And in 2007 Ingersoll-Rand sold Bobcat to Doosan Infracore International, a U.S.-based subsidiary of Doosan Infracore.

Through all of these changes, the original Bobcat spirit has lived on. People may wonder what would have happened had the Melroes and Kellers not come across each other. But one thing is certain: They both had a knack for solving problems. Their dedication remains at the heart of Bobcat’s mission to unleash customers.

Today, thousands of “Eddie Velos” have problems, and Bobcat is prepared to solve as many as possible with more compact equipment lines than any other manufacturer in the business. Same old story, fresh chapters. We’ve barely touched the surface of the 50-year history of the compact equipment industry and Bobcat Company with this article. You can read much more in a 264-page hardcover book titled, “Bobcat: Fifty Years of Opportunity — 1958 – 2008.” It can be purchased through participating Bobcat dealerships or online at www.bobcatstore.com.