History Book: A talent for building machinery

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Monday, September 2nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Now, the WORLD History Book. Today, a life of strong faith, hard work, and generosity.

Here’s WORLD Radio Reporter Emma Perley with the story of “God’s Businessman.”

EMMA PERLEY: In 1901, a 14 year-old boy named Robert Gilmour LeTourneau drops out of the sixth grade. R.G., as he’s known, is nearly six feet tall, and books and math don’t make quite as much sense to him as they do to his peers.

AUDIO BOOK: I was not only the biggest in the class, but also the dumbest.

That’s Karl Payton reading from R.G.’s autobiography, Mover of Men and Mountains. Audio here from Spotify.

AUDIO BOOK: (con’t) We call what I had an inferiority complex today, and I was crawling with it. I quit trying entirely and came to hate school with an almost physical violence.

Instead, LeTourneau turns to hard labor. He joins an already vast workforce of teenage employees. And begins an apprenticeship with an ironworker in Portland, Oregon.

LeTourneau spends the next decade working blue collar jobs. He tries his hand at welding, logging, and auto repair. After fixing up an old Buick race car, he challenges a friend to a publicity stunt. But a bad crash lands him in the hospital with a broken neck.

AUDIO BOOK: They tried to straighten me up with a rope arrangement that was first cousin to a hangman’s noose. It didn’t work. No matter how they tied my neck in place, and lashed my aching body to the bed, they’d find me in the morning with my head lying limp on my shoulder. “He looks,” said a doctor one day, “like a chicken trying to put its head under its wing … if he had enough neck.”

LeTourneau spends several months recovering at a friend’s house after being released from the hospital. And there, he meets his future wife, a young Christian woman named Evelyn. LeTourneau makes a full recovery, and marries Evelyn in 1917.

He lands a job repairing a tractor, and takes a keen interest in the earthmoving machine. As LeTourneau learns more about the equipment, he begins designing and inventing his own. In 1921, he starts an engineering workshop in California. His biggest projects include equipment used in building the Hoover Dam and paving the Boulder Highway. Audio here from R.G. Letourneau Inc.

INDUSTRY FILM: Truly, from these modern factories, come earthmoving and construction equipment designed and built to make your planning succeed. The LeTourneau power unit is considered tops in the construction field. There are more in use than all other makes combined.

LeTourneau eventually moves to Peoria, Illinois to establish a plant and be closer to Caterpillar, another construction company. The partnership flourishes, but soon his inventions and superior manufacturing outgrow Caterpillar’s engines.

AUDIO BOOK: I’m just a mechanic whom the Lord has blessed. As a mechanic, I like my machinery because I learned early that man is worth what man produces. And good machines help him produce more.

LeTourneau patents 299 designs, including a bulldozer, a portable crane, and other large earthmoving equipment. He even designs a machine that can build a house. It’s called: Bungalow Biddy. Audio here from AIRBOYD.

INDUSTRY FILM: R.G. LeTourneau, developer of the amazing machine, sees it rise off the completed house on hydraulic lifts. The machine can make one concrete and steel house in little more than a day at moderate cost.

LeTourneau’s neck injury prevents him from enlisting in World War II, but he finds other ways to contribute to the war effort.

A LeTourneau 80 ton tree crusher being tested in Vietnam, September 27, 1967. Creative Commons/Wikimedia Commons/Office of History, Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers USACE LNO trip slides Vietnam 9.86

AUDIO BOOK: During World War II, it was our organization that built over 50% of the earthmoving equipment used in combat. According to reports, more earth had to be moved during World War II than during all the combined wars of history.

He establishes the LeTourneau Technical Institute in an unused military hospital. The Institute has a combined focus on Christian faith, technical training, and traditional college curriculum. It eventually becomes known as LeTourneau University, and continues to operate in Longview, Texas. Audio here from a promotional video.

PROMOTIONAL VIDEO: Just as your namesake was committed to excellence, just as he was an innovative leader, so too has LeTourneau University become an institution known for its dedication to principles, and its vision.

LeTourneau eventually sold his manufacturing business for $25 million dollars. But he remained a humble man during his rise to success. Biographers estimate that he gave 90% of his lifetime earnings to Christian ministries and missions. And he traveled thousands of miles each week to speak at conferences and churches.

AUDIO BOOK: For 25 years or more, I’ve been traveling this land of ours and a few foreign countries trying to teach and preach by word of mouth and example, that a Christian businessman owes as much to God as a preacher does. The rest of the time, I build machinery.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Emma Perley.

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