Backhoe The founder of the JCB company, Joseph Cyril Bamford, holds the honour of being the only non-American in the U.S. construction industry's hall of fame. The American company Hy-Dynamic, a division of Bucyrus-Erie, introduced the second purpose-built American-made backhoe loader in 1959, the Dynahoe Model A. It offered a 14,000 lb. operating weight, 14-foot dig depth, and was powered by either a 65 hp Continental flat-head "Red Seal" 6-cylinder gasoline engine, or starting in 1961, a Detroit Diesel 353 diesel engine. The gasoline engine was phased out in 1964, with only diesel-powered units produced from that point on. The company
Backhoe tools, and are being displaced to some extent by multiple specialist tools like the excavator and the speciality front end loader, especially with the rise of the mini-excavator. On many job sites which would have previously seen a backhoe used, a skidsteer (colloquially often called a Bobcat after the most well known manufacturer and inventor of the category) and a mini excavator will be used in conjunction to fill the backhoe's role. However, backhoes still are in general use. Sometimes a backhoe bucket is reversed to work in a power shovel configuration. This is generally when loading from a large