SALINA and ABILENE, Kan. – There are two amazing museums where antique tractor collectors can view antique tractors and equipment along the Kansas I-70 corridor within a small area. Salina offers the amazing Kansas Central Flywheelers Inc. Yesteryear Museum, and Abilene has the Dickinson County Heritage Center.

Salina was once home to the Kanza Indians, and is the westernmost town on the Smokey River Trail. It is here among this history that the Yesteryear Museum is located. Will Cooper at the Yesteryear Museum shared that the museum is comprised of an Agricultural Display, 1901 Wells Church, 1927 One Room Schoolhouse, and an 1860 Kingsley-Ferguson Sawmill. The museum is an agricultural and living history experience featuring both horse and tractor drawn implements.

“The museum complex started in 1980. Before that it started with a steam exhibit and people sharing their equipment and what they used,” he said.

The collection grew when family members didn’t want to keep their old iron but wanted it to go to a special place. “We built this for people to keep their legacy. Most of the displays are static today although we used to do a weekend show.”

Cooper has been with the Yesteryear Museum for the past 20 years. He said they have local support from a foundation in town. The museum is run by volunteers like Cooper. The area was a huge Russian, Ukrainian and Swedish stop for settlers.

One of the companies from Salina that built tractors was OEM. The company began when F. A. Ostenberg and his brother Luther began an auto parts business in Salina in 1918. F.A. and Luther’s father had been in the tractor and implement business. The brothers decided to add tractors to the line up and built them using mostly automobile parts. Cooper said, “They made less than 100 tractors.”

The little tractors were hand painted and didn’t have serial numbers. The plant where they were made burned in 1954. “The tractors were cobbled together. They had Chrysler engines and were mostly bright orange. They were used in other countries,” Cooper said, “because they were easy to use.”

The first building at the museum has several educational displays including some amazing farm toy models made from wheat weaving by the late Lois Scheufler. For those that love model farm machinery, there was also a model threshing rig that was true to scale built by the late William Burgenger. A model steam engine was also built by the late Lemuel Lee Roy Hunter.

Besides an array of machinery, there is also a cool display of early grain grinding.   A placard shares, “In Kansas, seeds and wild grains were some of the earliest foods available. The grinding made the food more digestible. Corn was introduced into Kansas about 2,000 years ago. Beans and squash also came to Kansas about the same time…”

Some equipment is kept outside, but the bulk of the antique iron is in a huge building with a second story that rings the building. The equipment is on all floors. Collectors will enjoy viewing a steam engine, a rare1913 Bull Tractor and more. There are threshing machines and full-sized tractors of a wide variety like Twin City, International Harvester, John Deere and David Bradley. There are engines, wagons, trucks, and several cool collectibles as well as implements like The American Seeding machine. There is even a restored Le Roi Company tractor.

For details about the museum, check the website at (yesteryearmuseum.org). Call 785-825-8473 for more information.

Besides the museum, Salina also has some other agricultural stops that are part of their amazing art. There is a Salina Murals, self-guided trail. Two of the murals are ag related, one is Mural at the Mill, a mural on the side of a mill, and there is also one on the side of a train car titled Pastures of Plenty, which references Salina’s agricultural past.

In the town of Abilene, visitors come to see the Cowboy Art Trail, Eisenhower history, and art throughout the town. The Dickinson County Heritage Center is a wonderful museum where history lives. The museum includes a village and antique equipment. Besides the equipment, they have a C.L. Parker carousel. This turn of the century carousel was built in Abilene.

The village includes a beautiful barn onsite, an old log cabin, a former grocery store, and in the museum over 100 years of telephone history and more. Larry Sorenson, president of the Historic Society, said, “I started doing this in 1992. The Prichard barn came from Enterprise, and the Kellogg School House from northeast of Abilene. The grocery store was in a little town, and the log cabin came from the other side of Enterprise.”

Austin Anders is the director of the museum and pointed out some of the local businesses from the past like Alco, an authorized dealer for Fair Banks Morse. The big equipment shed housed several tractors, trucks, and a windmill. There was one of the earliest Fordsons, a John Goodson thresher that came from Canada and a W30 McCormick tractor, Wood Bro’s Thresher and more equipment rounded out the display. Many items have placards sharing the history of the piece of equipment, and its local connection to Dickinson County. “A lot of people are amazed by what we have here,” Anders said.

At the Heritage Center they have a show each year where they bring equipment out like the IH binder and bind oats. The show is held in October and is called Heritage Days. “The Midway is filled with vendors,” Anders added.

He shared that along with the museum there is also the Smokey Valley Railroad. This old Rock Island steam train travels from Abilene to the town of Enterprise. They offer tours for 4th graders and have a Pioneer camp every summer as well. Kids of all ages are amazed by the C.L. Parker carousel.

Anders said the little grocery store was a neighborhood grocery. “The owner bought fresh produce early each morning, then opened the store around 10. He was open six days a week and worked for 40 years.”

Larry’s wife, Judy Sorenson, showed some of the fun items in the Prichard barn. “My dad baled hay and I spent a lot of time in the barn. The bales were small, and I could still pack bales back then.”

Judy was excited about the barn quilt on the barn and said that they offer a self-guided Barn Quilt trail of Dickson County. The museum is decorated every Christmas, and she said it is a sight to behold.

For more information about the Dickinson County Heritage Center, visit www.dickinsoncountyhistoricalsociety.com, or call them at 785-263-2681.