Gradall started making its famous excavator during the 1940's, during a time in which World War II had created a shortage of workers. This decrease in the labor force brought a huge demand for the delicate work of grading and finishing highway projects.
Ferwerda-Werba-Ferwerda was a Cleveland, Ohio based construction business which experienced this particular dilemma first hand. Koop and Ray Ferwerda were brothers who had relocated from the Netherlands. They were partners in the company that had become among the leading highway contractors in Ohio. The Ferwerdas' started to build a machinery that would save their business and their livelihoods by inventing a unit that would carry out what had before been physical slope work. This creation was to offset the gap left in the workplace when a lot of men had joined the military.
The initial device these brothers created had 2 beams set on a rotating platform and was attached directly onto the top of a truck. They used a telescopic cylinder to be able to move the beams out and in. This allowed the connected blade at the end of the beams to push or pull dirt.
The Ferwerda brothers improved on their first design by making a triangular boom to create more strength. Next, they added a tilt cylinder that allowed the boom to turn forty-five degrees in either direction. This new model could be equipped with either a blade or a bucket and the attachment movement was made possible by placing a cylinder at the rear of the boom. This design powered a long push rod and allowed much work to be done.
Numerous digging buckets were introduced to the market not long later. These buckets in sizes ranging from 15 inch, 24 inch, 36 inch and 60 inch buckets. There was also a 47 inch heavy-duty pavement removal bucket which was available too.