c. 1921 Hercules Model E 1 1/2 HP Engine

 This Model E engine (serial #239840) was made by the Hercules Gas Engine Company in Evansville, Indiana, probably around 1921. It has a 1 1/2 HP engine and was rated at 550 RPM. The Model E was made between 1914 and 1921. Over 210,000 Model E engines appear to have been built.

 The Hercules Gas Engine Company's history has been traced back to William H. McCurdy and the Brighton Buggy Works of Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1894. Supplying Sears, Roebuck and Company with buggies, McCurdy's company grew to the point where he needed larger facilities to meet demand. In 1902, McCurdy moved the company to Evansville, Indiana and renamed it the Hercules Buggy Company. From the early 1900s to 1909, the Evansville factory produced the Sears Motor Buggy, its first experience with gasoline engines. Even after Sears moved the manufacture of their motor buggies to Chicago, the Hercules Buggy Company continued to produce bodies for the motor buggies.
 In 1912, the situation for McCurdy and for Sears changed. Sears had been purchasing its stationary engines from the Holm Machine and Manufacturing Company in Sparta, Michigan. When Holm could not meet the demand of Sears for its engines, McCurdy was asked to become the new supplier. In 1912, the Hercules Buggy Company purchased the Holm Company and moved the manufacturing of stationary engines to Evansville where a new factory was being built. On November 8, 1912, the Hercules Gas Engine Company was formed. In early 1914, the first Hercules engines rolled off the line. They would be the first of about 400,000 engines produced by the Hercules Gas Engine Company until the factory closed in 1934.
 If you walk a short distance down the line of gas engines here in this exhibit, you will find a Hercules Model S 1 3/4 HP engine, made in Evansville around 1927, probably for Sears, Roebuck & Company.

Notes

A good resource for information on the Hercules Gas Engine Company is herculesengines.com, which can be accessed here. It has lots of photos, as well as brochures, owner's manuals, and other items for the Hercules lines of engines. A good narrative of the company's history can be found on the tractorfriends.org website, http://www.tractorfriends.org/history/herculesengine/herculesengine.html, which you can access here. For some basic information on the Hercules Model E printed in the August 1992 Gas Engine Magazine, click or touch here. For a Hercules engine serial number list, click or touch here.