Cooperative Living November/December 2021 - 9

Since it opened in 2010,
the Colonial Heights
museum has seen thousands
of visitors. The majority of
the collection is tractors,
but also includes classic cars
and trucks.
expanding collection. The centerpiece
is the 180 restored tractors from
household names like John Deere to
little-remembered Graham-Bradley. But,
just about any vintage item with four
wheels, more or less, is eligible for
inclusion alongside tools, model trucks
and old-time gas pumps.
Jones and curator " Bones " Stone
stay on the lookout for additions, and
they search far and wide - one recent
reclamation project involved a White
Motor Co. wrecker truck made and
used in Cleveland, Ohio.
TIME WARP
Most of the tractors bear little
resemblance to their once day-to-day
workload. They've been sanded,
repainted and rebuilt, when possible,
with replacement parts, though a 1917
International Harvester Titan 10-20
retains a gritty look and feel, including
a faded umbrella that protected farmers
from the open sun.
The museum houses a 1918 Moline
Universal tractor, considered to be the
first row-crop tractor, which also could
be used with horse-drawn implements.
At $1,325, it became a hit, even with a
half-moon steering mechanism of
interlocking teeth that looks like it
required a half-acre to turn around.
And you needed a blowtorch,
seriously, to press the 1943 Lanz
Bulldog into service. A blowtorch
heated a bulb that was cranked with
a detachable steering wheel to turn
the flywheel and fire a single-cylinder,
two-stroke engine.
Each piece in the museum has its
own story, as well. The family of
Leonard Kanner of Macedonia, Ohio,
donated the one-of-a-kind Indian
Motorcycle Tractor, which Kanner, an
engineer, designed and fabricated 70
years ago from surplus war materials.
He used it to do dirt work on his house,
plow snow and trim hedges.
The museum even gapped time
and cleared up a mystery for Fury,
raised on two-cylinder tractors as a
youngster. When he started volunteering,
he saw a familiar John Deere
tractor and finally figured out the
model year of his father's last tractor.
" The first year John Deere went
to four-cylinder was 1960, " he says.
" I didn't know what it was, year-wise,
until I came in here. "
CRUISIN' TRACTOR
Let's say you had
some work to do in
the field and wanted
to take the missus out
for a night on the town.
The 1938
Minneapolis-Moline
UDLX had you covered.
The Creamsicle-colored
1917 International
Harvester Titan 10-20
co-opliving.com
1938 Minneapolis-Moline UDLX
" Farm during the day,
drive to town at night. "
piece of machinery was the first
production farm tractor built with a
cab. Priced at $2,155, it came equipped
with a radio, a fold-down jump seat,
a cigarette lighter and other comforts
not normally seen in farm equipment.
Perhaps predictably, the idea of a
" comfortractor " didn't resonate with
farmers or their spouses. Classic car
author Daniel Strohl estimates only
about 100 were sold as production
folded within a few months.
The Keystone Museum has one
of the few restored UDLXs and,
during a recent visit, Mike Pilegga of
Wilmington, N.C., figured out the
reason for the demise of the cruising
tractor.
" The wheel is taller than my wife, "
he jokes. 
For more, visit keystonetractorworks.com.
Keystone Truck & Tractor Museum
880W. Roslyn Road
Colonial Heights, VA 23834
804-524-0020
Open 10 a.m.-6 p.m.Monday-Saturday
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday
November-December 2021 | Cooperative Living | 7
http://www.keystonetractorworks.com http://www.co-opliving.com
Cooperative Living November/December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Cooperative Living November/December 2021
