MOUNT VERNON — It’s fair time, and there’s no better opportunity to explore the extensive collection of the Knox County Agricultural Museum than now.
I recently had the opportunity to get a preview of the attractions with board member David Greer. David’s enthusiasm for farm history is palpable, and keeping up with the flow of information is a bit like going whitewater rafting in a rowboat, but I was able to glean a few bits of insight before he swept me on to the next item to catch his eye.
Without a question, one of the most imposing items in the museum’s collection is the 1919 Case threshing machine, powered and pulled by a separate H. P. Russell steam engine.
The museum even has the receipt for the steam engine, which cost $1,014.40. It took an entire team of people to operate the beast of a machine, which separated the wheat from the chaff, dropping the wheat into a chute to which burlap bags could be attached, while the chaff was shunted off into a larger chute to be projected away from the machine.
Even with its cumbersome nature, the machine still considerably outpaced separating the wheat by hand the ancient way. Greer pointed out that within decades of this machine’s heyday, however, the old threshers would give way to the quintessential modern piece of farm equipment, the self-propelled combine.
At the smaller end of the scale, Greer demonstrated a vintage lawn mower. While the cylinder-shaped curved blades with wheels on the end are a familiar pre-modern way to cut a lawn, the museum has a couple of even older style mowers which must have been a chore to use.
Instead of having wheels, the mower has metal gears that would be pushed across the ground, turning interlocked right-angle gears with sharp edges that would shear off blades of grass. The mower would clearly only work on level ground, would require the grass to be cut very short and very often, and absolutely could not handle anything so large as a stick. No wonder they were soon outmoded by better designs!
Full walk-in displays will be open, too, including such popular features as the Lepley Log House, built in 1881 on Hazel Dell Road in Butler Township. It was donated to the museum in more recent years by Randy Frazee and family. The structure had to be taken apart, each piece labeled, and reassembled at the Knox County Fairgrounds, where the Ag Museum is permanently located.
These, and hundreds of other displays, make the Knox County Ag Museum one of the finest displays of rural life in the state and far beyond. It is not to be missed!
