Charles City is known for the role it played in the history of the American tractor. A native son Charles Walter Hart, whose father owned three local farms, met Charles H. Parr in college. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin, Hart and Parr developed a two-cylinder gasoline engine. They set up their Hart-Parr Gasoline Engine Company in Charles City in 1897. In 1901 the two founders coined the word "tractor", with Latin roots and a combination of the words "traction" and "power". In 1903 the firm built fifteen "tractors", the first successful production-model tractor line in the U.S. The 14,000-pound No. 3 is the oldest surviving internal combustion engine tractor in the United States. It is displayed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington D.C.