Tools Of The Trade: MacLean MV5 Snow Tractor

Before the mid-1800s, snow removal was simply what humans did with their feet as they trudged through it. So you can imagine the societal frustration during the “The Great Snow of 1717” or “The Washington and Jefferson Snowstorm” of 1772, and one could even argue that these two events inspired the advent of snow removal. However, beginning with manpower and shovels, or the famous horse-drawn “snow rollers”, and evolving up to the low-emission MacLean MV5 snow tractor that we use today, snow removal has come a long way.

According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the first snow plows were used by the city of Milwaukee in 1862. These snow plows were horse-drawn and would deposit the compacted snow in huge piles on the city’s streets and sidewalks. However, not all towns used plows as some just used shovels, like New York City where the Police Department managed snow removal until the Department of Street Cleaning took over the job.

As horses and man power were eventually replaced by machines, there have been three main revisions of what we’ve now come to think of as the modern snow blower. Robert Carr Harris from New Brunswick patented the “Railway Screw Snow Excavator” in 1870, and Orange Jull improved that design in 1884 in Ontario, Canada.

However, it wasn’t until Arthur Sicard, the son of a Canadian dairy farmer, was looking to make delivering milk easier in the winter. Sicard would eventually sell his “Sicard Snow Remover Snow Blower” in 1927, which proved incredibly effective. Sicard’s invention arrived in perfect timing due to the general growth of automobile ownership that required more effective snow-clearing methods.

Today, we at Elements use different machines to remove snow here in Tahoe Donner, including the MacLean MV5. Founded in 2008, the “MacLean Municipal Vehicle division” (MacLean) produces North America’s cleanest-burning diesel engine, the MacLean MV5. Its simplicity in design, low emissions, high horsepower, and versatility makes our fleet “the red, green choice” for snow removal in Tahoe Donner.