It was in the early 1980's when this organization was founded. It all started when Charles Caldwell, local farm machinery dealer in Stillwater Oklahoma, got hooked. I remember I was around 12 years old when my uncle came back to the shop carrying a trophy. He had taken the shops Hot Rod 7, a Massey Ferguson 7 lawn tractor with 16Hp engine, put bar lug wheels on the back from a Satoh 4-wheel drive tractor, and he went to Cushing OK. This trophy wasn't big, but little did I know it would turn into years of tractor pulling. When this trophy come back with my uncle, I new I was hooked as well

Payne County Implement, Caldwell Implement, Marion German and others got together and started talking. I remember we would have meetings at my uncles shop, Caldwell Implement, setting around on 5 gallon oil buckets and oil boxes in the east room along with a 1939 Ford 2N tractor S/N 899. Out of these meetings was founded: The Payne County Lawn and Garden Tractor Pullers Association.

Our 1st pull, that I can remember, was at the Payne County Fair. The members had pulled together and built a sled that used sand bags in the box for weight. The sled used about a 10' chain.

We then started to grow and introduce new classes, some people thought we were crazy adding motorcycle classes. We started pulling in Perry, Pawnee and other local fairs. Our members and pulls were no longer just located in Payne County. We then decided to change our name to the Tri-County Garden Tractor Pulling Association.

At this point in time we had outgrown our sled. We then purchased a sled from Kiefer OK, that was larger in size. We then decided we needed to start weighing tractors and we purchased as set of scales. This took place around 1985.

For nearly 10 years we kept pulling around County Fairs, until 1996. We then landed a pull in the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds Arena with the Darryl Starbirds Car Show, we thought we were in Hog Heaven. We then took another major step, we thought we should change our name again. We believed our organization was good enough to represent the Oklahoma name, thus born the Oklahoma Garden Tractor Pulling Association.

In 2000 we started a project that was dreamed of for years. We designed and built a brand new self propelled sled. 20 years worth of experience helped out a bunch.