First Generation Case Raking Machine

Robert Case testing his first-generation cranberry raking machine. Second person is unidentified but is possibly employee Robert Hendricks.

Below are blueprints filed July 8, 1943 with Bob’s patent application.

The idea of using a machine to harvest cranberries was first mentioned in 1885. The Warrens Index reported in 1901 that inventor Clark Stevens demonstrated a cranberry picker on the Wyatt & Purdy Marsh in Valley Junction “that promises to revolutionize the cranberry business.”

Stevens’ machine ran on two wheels and was drawn by two men and cleaned a track about a foot wide. While the editor was impressed by the machine’s performance, we found no other record of its use after that initial demonstration.

Cranberry growers in other parts of the country were also striving to develop mechanical cranberry pickers and a few had working models. A handful of Wisconsin growers had also patented designs. But it wasn’t until 1943 that the first successful picker made in Wisconsin was unveiled.

Robert “Bob” Case was commissioned by eight Wisconsin cranberry growers to design a machine to harvest cranberries to reduce labor costs. “The Wisconsin Picker” was tested for six years before the first-generation Case raking machines were made available to the investors.

Bob began inventing cranberry equipment as a young man on his aunt Lucetta Case’s marsh near Mather.

“I told Robert that if he would stay and help me, he could have machinery of his own to work with,” Miss Case said in a 1937 newspaper interview.

Bob’s first invention was a weed clipper with five blades powered by an outboard motor.

Around 1938 Bob began renting the office portion of the building that houses our museum to build cranberry equipment. (The office on the south end of the George Warren Company planing mill was torn down around 2000.)

Initially Bob built vine clippers, vine planters and sand spreaders for local cranberry growers.

In September 1942 the following Wisconsin cranberry growers – Arthur Bennett, Roy Potter, Forest Mengel, Charles Dempze, Clarence Jasperson, Bernard Brazeau, Guy Potter and Oscar Potter – hired Bob to develop a mechanical cranberry harvesting machine.

By April 1943 Bob had a prototype ready to demonstrate to his investors on the Oscar Potter marsh east of Warrens.

It took Bob several more years to perfect the picker. Progress was slowed due to World War II and the difficulty in getting all the materials needed.

Bob built his first three pickers in this building – including the one on display – before buying the old Warrens Creamery building and moving his business down the street.

Bob and employee Robert Hendricks continued to improve his design and in 1951 built 11 second-generation Case pickers at a cost of $2,000 each. The machine required three men to operate it, but it did the work of seven to 10 men with hand rakes.

By 1961 Case Machine Company had sold about 60 pickers.

The first-generation Case picker on display in the museum is on loan from Jack Potter. Jack is Oscar Potter’s grandson.