At this year’s National Farm Toy Show, Larry Hunt of Hunt’s Custom Farm Toys was one of the vendors set up outside the National Farm Toy Museum. (The museum and Beckman High School are where the main events take place, along with vendors at Dyersville, Iowa’s, Commercial Park. Larry, who hails from Logansport, Ind., was set up in a tent along with a few other vendors who were shopping around the museum before the show opened that Friday evening the first weekend of November. He builds farm toy model pulling tractors. Larry selects the 1/16 scale and his display included pulling tractors from John Deere to Farmall and beyond; most of all, he covers models from different time periods. “I do pulling tractors from different eras, from the most modern to 50 years back, the good old days of pulling,” he reminisced. Admirers of Larry’s models gathered around and viewed his display of tractors for sale. While he creates other types of farm toys as well, his puller tractors and sleds were going quickly at the show. The history of tractor pulling has farm roots, of course. According to the National Tractor Pullers Assoc. (NTPA), the hobby came about around the 1860s when farming machines were pulled by horse. As with many trades, farmers would boast about the strength of their horses and claim their animals could tow large loads, such as a fully loaded hay cart or wagon. “Farmers would challenge one another to contests to prove who had the strongest horse. A barn door was removed and laid flat on the ground, and the horse was then hitched to it; the farmer would then urge the horse to drag the barn door along the ground,” according to the NTPA. “One by one, people jumped on the door until the horse could no longer drag it; the horse pulling the most people the greatest distance was judged the strongest.” The first events using machinery are noted to be in 1929. Larry covered some of this history with his display. “I had seven different stages, starting with Farmall and the mud sled through innovations, which now include the transfer sled,” he explained. The display is quite an education in tractor pulling. “The ‘Sixty Years of Tractor Pull’ was in 2009, I believe,” Larry said – this is when he started showing his displays. “The event was a local one that was a fundraiser for the local fire department.” One of the biggest changes over time is the sled the tractors pull. As noted, on the old sleds, the weight was added by people jumping on. “They just add weights to the transfer sleds” now, Larry noted. One pulling tractor he has replicated is Solid Junk. This tractor is a Minneapolis Moline G-1000 that ran on alcohol. “This was a famous pulling tractor that I think won in the 12,000-pound class,” he said. Another tractor represented was a national champ, Rusty Duty. Larry said this tractor hooked 28 times and won 25, so it has an amazing record. He has enjoyed capturing the images of these models and their innovations. Things have changed a lot over time, he added, through more safety regulations like side shields and the like. “I have one I made with the cages, but it sold already,” he said at Dyersville. Readers with questions or comments for Cindy Ladage may write to her in care of this publication. Learn more of Cindy’s finds and travel in her blog, “Traveling Adventures of a Farm Girl,” at http://travelingadventuresofafarmgirl.com |
