History of West Virginia Tractor Company
In 1936 our predecessor company, West Virginia Tractor & Equipment Co., evolved from Basham Equipment Co. The founder and president was L.C. Basham, who continued to operate the business until his death in 1968. His four sons operated the business until they retired in 1982, when the third generation formed West Virginia Tractor Company with Gary Grady as president, Steve Basham and Ed Basham as vice presidents, and Susan Hill as secretary and treasurer. Ed Basham left the company after a few years. Susan is still an officer of the company, but is no longer an employee.
The primary focus of our predecessor companies was selling and servicing construction and mining equipment throughout West Virginia. In the 1950’s the company began representing some of the top municipal equipment manufacturers, including Leach and Elgin in 1956 and Vactor in 1968.
The late 1970’s and the early 1980’s were very difficult times in the mining and construction equipment fields. So, West Virginia Tractor began to focus
on governmental sales with Elgin, Leach, and Vactor as the primary accounts. When our largest customer, The West Virginia Division of Highways, began
to update its equipment fleet, we took on new construction equipment lines, such Champion motor graders, Badger telescopic boom excavators, Fermec (now Mecalac) backhoe loaders, and Hyundai excavators and wheels loaders. We have been very successful in selling large numbers of equipment to the WVDOH.
West Virginia Tractor Company moved to a more modern facility a few blocks from the intersection of three Interstate highways in 1992. Throughout our nearly three quarters of a century, we have always been headquartered in Charleston, the capital and center of commerce of West Virginia.
Some of the other equipment lines we represent include Elgin street sweepers, Vactor and US Jetting sewer and culvert cleaners, New Way refuse trucks,
E.D. Etnyre asphalt equipment and trailers, Galbreath/Wastequip roll-off truck sand refuse/recycling equipment, Altec truck cranes and aerial devices, Rammer/Allied Construction Products, Hi-Way material spreaders, Rogers trailers, American Road Machinery truck equipment, ARM leaf loaders, Insight Vision inspection systems, Sweepster/FFC brooms and attachments, Western plows and spreaders, Interstate trailers, Flowmark vacuum tank trucks, and Dur-A-Lift aerial devices, and Mecalac loaders and excavators.
Current employees are: Gary Grady, president; Steve Basham, vice president; Michael Grady, vice president; Mark Casto, service; Christopher Grady and Aaron Stuter, parts, Jennifer Grady, accounting.
Our area of service for most of our accounts is the state of West Virginia, except for the northern panhandle. For some of our accounts we also serve the northern panhandle of West Virginia, and the western panhandle of Maryland.