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The Jensen Ranch:
The First Partnership
(1872-1920)
The Early 20th Century:
Modernization
In 1914, the Jensen brothers bought a second-hand, single-cylinder gas engine to provide motive power for their thresher, and other farm machinery, previously powered by horse or by hand.
Three years later they bought a new separator and - in another two years - a new tractor. They threshed for themselves and for neighbors and even for farmers in Contra Costa County and took the machinery "on the road" to Sunol, to help friends.
Jensen ranch hands and their machines worked along the canyons - Dublin, Eden, Crow, Cull, Hollis, Greenridge, Sunnyslope and Norris. Threshing time often lasted for 90 days. Even with all this "modern" equipment, it would still take 14 horses and 10 men, working dawn to dusk, to complete a job! The Jensens charged farmers $40.00 a day for threshing. Hired help would receive three meals.
Newton Jensen - of the second generation - influenced the family to expand its poultry farming, and the ranch eventually had as many as 4,000 hens and all kinds of poultry houses and equipment.
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The Jensens bought their first bit of motive power just before World War I. They invested in a large, second-hand engine (above), which they named "Old Betsy." This huge machine had one large cylinder, and was so heavy that the Jensens had to build a special wooden carriage to transport it. It was used all over the Ranch, and was also used by the Partnership to do contract work at other local ranches, in Cull, Eden, and Palomares canyons
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After the demise of Old Betsy in the early 1920's, more sophisticated farm machinery became common on the Ranch |
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