By Cindy Ladage

KOKOMO, Ind. – The town of Kokomo is full of agricultural finds that antique tractor collectors will enjoy. A visit to this mid-size city may be a fun-filled event to add to the summer calendar. Kokomo has many cool agricultural connections.

One is John Powell, who was a friend of Henry Ford. Powell was from Kokomo, and he built his own homemade tractor. Working with a neighbor in a muddy field he noted it was difficult to use a mechanical field picker in the field. Realizing that corn pickers required the use of wheels to engage, he developed a corn picker which connected to the power take off.

In 1925, he contacted the New Idea Co. and shared his idea of a two-row “power take off” corn picker which could be pulled by a two-plow tractor. New Idea worked with Powell and in the late 1920s, his invention came to fruition. Randy Smith, assistant curator at the Howard County Historical Society, helped unearth this story. Sadly, there is no tractor or machine known to be viewed, but the agricultural history is inspiring.

Many agricultural industrialists came to the area with the discovery of natural gas in Indiana. The first significant commercial gas well came Sept. 15, 1886, in Eaton, with the discovery of a 5,000-square-mile area. This discovery brought a natural gas boom to Portland, Muncie, Kokomo, Anderson, Marion and beyond. These towns started coming up with creative ways to bring industry to town through the offer of free natural gas, land and tax credits.

The Indiana Natural Gas Co. formed, leasing 23,000 acres of land. Assuming gas production would last a couple of hundred years, they invited businesses to come to Kokomo by offering free gas.

It was the gas boom that brought Monroe Seiberling to Kokomo. He was the founder of the Diamond Plate Glass Co., which at one time was the largest plate glass factory in the country. Today, the company is mostly gone, but one of the buildings is an antique mall, the Original Treasure Mart. Along with regular antiques, farm items are available.

The house Seiberling built, a Queen Anne and Romanesque-style home, is an architectural masterpiece. Built from 1889-1891, the home is now the Howard County Museum and Seiberling Mansion, which is open to tour with lots of agricultural connections.

Besides the Diamond Plate Glass Co., Seiberling also started Kokomo Strawboard and other factories. Sieberling built this mansion, and it makes sense that it was heated by natural gas. Sieberling only stayed a couple of years in Kokomo. When the natural gas fields began to deplete, he moved on to Peoria, Ill., where he built the Peoria Rubber and Manufacturing Co., the Prospect Heights Street Railway, and the Seiberling Plate Glass Co. in the nearby town of Ottawa, Ill.

George Kingston and his family lived the longest at the mansion. The family moved to Kokomo in 1901 when he first worked at the Ford and Donley factory as a pattern maker. In 1903, he started Byrne, Kingston & Co. to manufacture carburetors used in Ford automobiles. This company later merged with the Kokomo Brass Works and the Kokomo Electric Co. to become the Kingston Products Corp.

Kingston Products made roller skates and an array of other items. “They also made an electric car that stayed on a rail,” Smith shared. Kingston Products also made spark plugs and a spark coil for many applications.

At the museum they also had an electric fence controller on hand. After the Kingston family moved out, the mansion became Indiana University Kokomo until 1965.

Another mover and shaker that has automotive connections which may interest collectors is Elwood Haynes. Born in Portland, Haynes later moved to Kokomo where he built a beautiful home that is now the Elwood Haynes Museum. The museum shares the story of Haynes and his inventions. Although known primarily today for his metallurgy discoveries, he is credited with the first commercially successful gasoline powered automobile in the United States. One of his automobiles is on display in the museum.

Another fun agricultural stop is in Highland Park, where visitors can see Old Ben, the world’s largest steer. He was born in 1902 in Miami County on the farm of Mike and John Murphy. Weighing around 125 pounds at birth, he was 4,000 pounds when he reached the age of four. The family put in a rail spur to their farm to assist with taking Ben to travel. He fell on a patch of ice in 1910 and had to be put down. At that time, he was 6 feet five inches tall, more than 16 feet in length, and weighed around 4,700 lbs. A taxidermist from Rochester, N.Y., did the taxidermy job, and in 1919, Old Ben was donated to Kokomo for display. Beside him is a huge sycamore tree stump worth seeing as well.

The park is beautiful and an area that became settled as more people came to town. Inside the park is the Vermont Covered Bridge, built across the Wildcat Creek. It was originally built in 1876, near the small farming community of Vermont in eastern Howard County. It was going to be destroyed but thanks to the Howard County Historical Society, it was relocated to Highland Park.

These are a few of the agricultural finds that collectors may enjoy in this historical city.