Kieffer Steiger 

The Kieffer family is very well known around the Casselton, North Dakota area.  Peter Kieffer was an exceptionally talented, naturally gifted mechanic and engineer.  He built his own four-wheel-drive tractor, the Blue Ox, when he was only 22 years old.  While building the Blue Ox, he became good friends with Douglass and Maurice Steiger, and he had a great deal of respect for them and their engineering abilities, and they felt the same way about him.  Peter farmed and also operated a custom earth moving business.  After he built the Blue Ox, he also built a large elevating-style dirt scraper, which he pulled with a crawler tractor.  The Steiger brothers had just begun producing tractors for sale at this time, and the three men decided to work together on a venture that would combine Peter’s scraper with a Steiger tractor.  Douglass and Maurice sold Peter a new model 1700, serial number 107, which Peter used as the power source for a new scraper that he built specifically for this tractor.  The scraper was identified as the Steiger 4E-14.  It is a fully hydraulically controlled elevating-type scraper with a 14-cubic-yard capacity.  The tractor and scraper combination was demonstrated to the road contractor that was building Interstate 29 near Grand Forks, North Dakota.  The combination easily outworked the equipment that was being used by the construction company, but for whatever reason, a deal could not be made.  The decision was then made to abandon the scraper project entirely.  Peter used this tractor for a few years before selling it to his brother Leo for use in his farming operation.