By BOB RIGGS
Indiana Correspondent

LANESVILLE, Ind. — Jim Baumgart’s ambition is to become a museum owner. He is trying to turn his farm into a textbook replica of a working 1930s-vintage farm.

His purpose is to provide a visual educational program of restored farm machinery. Most of it from the catalogue of John Deere farm tools and implements from that era.

Baumgart owns more than 30 John Deere tractors, threshing machines, corn shellers, elevators and more farm-related antiques that he purchased at auctions or on the Internet. His passion has taken him to sales in New York, Michgan, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia and North Carolina.
Baumgart caught the JD bug in the 1960s when he inherited his grandfather’s 1939 tractor which came from a dealer about a mile from the family farm.
After retiring from his full-time job, Baumgart bought a big Ford diesel pickup and low-profile trailer so he could haul equipment back to his Southern Indiana farm.

“Usually I go on these trips by myself,” Baumgart said. “Either the auction house or the seller helps me load the equipment,” he said.

Baumgart often attends the Gathering of the Green semi-annual John Deere convention, which is located in Davenport, Iowa the middle of John Deere country.

Baumgart remembers the thrill of his auction victories, when he obtained a desired piece. And he recalls the agonies of defeat when lost out.
Once, in St. Cloud, Minn., he had hoped to buy an antique John Deere threshing machine. When the bidding got hot, he found himself at nearly twice what he wanted to pay.

“This is specific auction where a tubular elevator and the thresher were sold,” Baumgart said. That thresher went for more than $10,000. I went to $3,500.
“They are usually $2,000 or less.”

Baumgart lost that one, but he was able to purchase a 1930s JD paddle elevator. The implement rests on four steel wheels, and it was powered by a belt attached to a tractor or steam engine. The booms reach a height of 20 feet or more. It was used to put shelled corn into silos or grain bins.
Other purchases included a century-old wood stove that had been the only heat for a farm family. He bought it for $20. He also acquired four, five-gallon buckets full of cleaned and painted drive chains from vintage farm equipment for $25. He has since used them to repair other antiques.

Unfortunately, the adventure was not over when Baumgart loaded his purchases in the truck.

“The weather on the way back was rainy and strong winds were coming up from the South,” Baumgart recounted. “It was still 785 miles back from St. Cloud, Minn. to Southern, Indiana.”"

Nestled in the truck bed, the elevator extended over the wood stove and the passenger-side of the pickup truck cab. Baumgart chuckled that the Chicago toll-road attendants were awestruck at the sight.

Buamgart owns and operates Deere Farms, a family entertainment operation with professionally designed corn mazes and games, a U-Pick pumpkin patch, a gem mining game, a bounce house for the kids and an antique John Deere tractor and farm implement display.