Harold Metternick Jr. created a museum in Clarksdale, Mich., featuring Farmall equipment and focusing on family history. He is a retired electrician and part-time farmer with a love of all things International Harvester and a desire to preserve the company history.

 

On a quiet street in Clarksdale – aptly named McCormick Street – Harold’s Farmall Acres is located in a building with its own agricultural history. “This was an onion storage building,” he said. “There was a tunnel and fans that sucked or provided air. The onions didn’t ever touch the walls.”

Harold learned about the building when he wired the company’s new onion storage facility. While onions and carrots are still grown in the area, he said like other farming operations these days, many of the fields have been converted to corn and soybeans.

The building was purchased in 2009 and Harold received his first visitors in 2010. Today the museum is filled with IH equipment, literature and memorabilia. One of the most sentimental items in the museum is Harold’s first tractor, a 1954 Super C with a fast hitch.

“I grew up in Alto, Michigan,” Harold reminisced, “and learned to farm on a 1953 Ford Jubilee.” He was a freshman when he first worked on a local farm. “I graduated from high school in 1959. My wife (Ruth Ann) and I both went to Lowell high school.”

After school, he made water heaters at  a factory for five years, then worked forSkelly Oil for more than six years before he became an electrician at the age of 29. While he didn’t grow up on a farm, Ruth Ann did, as did his parents.

When he could, he bought farm ground. The first 40 acres was purchased in 1962; later, he picked up family farm ground. Harold farmed along with working full-time over the years. The second tractor that he bought, a Farmall 300 row crop, is on display in the museum.

The museum includes cases Harold made that hold items like Osborne tillage literature, signs, planter lids and a wide variety of IH history. Tools fill the walls and IH farm equipment lines them on both sides. There are a couple of hay loaders – a Model H used for grass, silage, peas and beans for canneries, the other a Model R, never assembled and found in the original packaging. In the museum center are a couple of IH wagons that hold items ranging from signs to tools and more.

 

The second building of the museum houses tractors and even IH kitchen items like refrigerators and a freezer. Off the back is a room with lawn and garden tractors and mowers.

While most items are IH, there are a few other farm pieces included because they are family, local or just plain cool – like the Champion Egg Case machine built by J.K. Ashley of Science Hill, Ky. It was owned by the Bergy Brothers Elevator.

The collection includes Harold’s father-inlaw’s John Deere wrenches, and carpenter tools belonging to Reuben Shade, Ruth Ann’s grandpa, are in a place of honor.

On a table the IH Titan gas turbine owned by his son, Tim, is on display. “Tim is my youngest son and he is into this too,” he noted. This amazing museum requires upkeep so to help defray costs, Harold charges a $5 admission fee. He loves to have visitors, and this is a great stop for groups that want to see IH history or learn more about early agriculture.

The museum is located at 170 McCormick St., Clarksville, MI 48815. Ordinarily the museum is open from May-October, but by appointment. Call Harold at 616-868-6639 to schedule a tour.

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 at http://travelingadventuresofafarmgirl.com