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BELLEVILLE, Ill. — If it has anything to do with horsepower, Tom Renner probably has it in his collection. That includes the horses. In fact, the horses are the first part of Renner’s normal workday.
“In the morning, the first thing I do is feed 40 horses,” he said.
Horsepower is the underlying theme of Renner’s massive collection of vintage tractors and antique wagons and horse-drawn equipment.
“If a horse has anything to do with it, I’ve got it,” he said.
Renner farms on Renner Stock Farms, his fifth-generation farm, near Belleville. He also owns Shiloh Equipment Co., a farm equipment business and John Deere dealership in Belleville.
The man who started the 100 Years of Horsepower festival, which was canceled this year because of COVID-19, started his interest in farm implements and horsepower early, listening to stories of farm life from both sets of grandparents. But even as he listened, he also had some questions.
“I’d ask, ‘What is that thing hanging in the barn? What did you use that for?’ I had 50 million questions, but it always intrigued me and that has never stopped,” Renner said.
Many pieces of the collection he has are from his grandparents and his parents.
“They never threw anything away,” Renner said.
The collection ranges from common items — well pumps and everyday household items — to rare items, like hog oilers. It’s in those rare items that Renner gives a glimpse of farm life in the past.
“People will say, ‘What are those things?’ They’re hog oilers. ‘What do you need to oil a hog for?’ I tell them for lice. In those days, we didn’t have confinement hogs. You had dirt hogs. They had lice and that was a major problem, so you had hog oilers,” he said.
The early horsepower component of the collection takes up the shed that originally housed Renner’s farm trucks. He put two additions onto that building to hold his growing collection.
“I added a little shelf to put wagons on and then we made a loft and we’ve got wagons and buggies up there,” he said.
It ranges from an original prairie schooner wagon, of the sort that carried pioneers west, to everyday horse-drawn conveyances, like milk wagons, mail wagons, wagons that carried dirt and rocks with bottoms that opened up, and horse-drawn taxis. Some of the wagons have familiar names.
“Triple box John Deere box wagon, John Deere flex-type flare bed wagon, 1904 John Deere two-seat surrey,” Renner lists off as he walks among the familiar rows of horse-drawn wagons.
Some pieces of the collection have found their way back home, thanks to Renner.
“A wagon I bought in Montgomery, Indiana, it says ‘Miller and Schwartz Maker, Belleville, Illinois.’ I got home and cleaned it up and the name came out. I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, that was meant to happen.’ It’s got all the original hand-painted script on it,” Renner said.
In the main room of the museum, the far end catches the eye. A boardwalk sidewalk carries guests into and along the Bullock and Star General Store and a hotel.
Both are recreations of similar businesses from historic Deadwood, South Dakota, the Gold Rush settlement where Wild Bill Hickock was shot and killed by Jack McCall in 1876.
While Renner has never been to Deadwood, he said reading about the historic Gold Rush town and seeing the HBO movie of the same name inspired him to recreate a general store and hotel as they might have been.
“I was thinking how to make it look different and those are two businesses in Deadwood during the Gold Rush. We started out with things you’d buy at a hardware store, like feed supplies, scales,” Renner said.
Inside each of the rooms of the general store and the hotel can be found the items of everyday life more than 100 years ago, from food tins with familiar names to the things needed for everyday life in homes and ranches on the prairie. In the hotel room, an antique bathtub, complete with an overhead antique hot water tank that provided hot water for the weary bather, greets guests.
The core of the whole collection is horsepower, then and now.
“I’ve got everything a horse ever pulled,” Renner said.
The collection moves from wagons pulled by horses to tractors that measure their strength in horsepower. Renner’s knowledge of his collection and what makes each one special is as extensive as the collection itself.
“Waterloo Boy. Everything in that row, they made less than 100 of them. It’s not just a 2510. It’s a 2510 diesel high crop, 3020 powershift utility, 3020 Wheatland, 3010 diesel, 2520 diesel powershift, 7030 LP gas tractor, 4230 powershift utility,” Renner lists as he walks among the two rows of gleaming tractors in another room of the building that houses all phases of his collection.
He pauses at one tractor, a 4020 John Deere.
“This is my dad’s 4020. He bought it brand new and got rid of it 35 years ago, sold it to a neighbor,” Renner said.
He said of most of the tractors in his collection “they find me.”
“The dealership helps and I get calls every day from auctioneers asking, ‘What’s this worth?’ or ‘What is this? I’ll send you a picture.’ So, they send me a picture and I’ll give them a bid,” he said.
Other pieces of the collection have come from people cleaning out the barns, sheds and garages of parents and grandparents. Most of the tractor collection has been in need of repair and restoration.
“Most of them are not running or pretty trashy. We buy them and fix them up,” Renner said.
A friend of Renner’s son, Jake, spotted the tractor sitting in a fencerow. Jake bought the tractor and brought it back to the farm. Together, Tom and Jake fixed up the tractor, including engine and transmission overhaul, new tires and paint.
“We spent some time on it, but it’s here and it runs and it’s perfect now,” Renner said.
He estimates that he has over 200 tractors in his collection, including the massive power tractors of the 1980s, Big Bud, a Steiger Tiger, a Versatile 1150 and an IH 4186. When it comes to the wagons and horse-drawn implements, that number doubles.
It’s not likely to stop either. Being in the business of farm tractors and farm implements, Renner said he’s got the perfect camouflage for working in just one more.
“I’m in the tractor business, so I kind of have an excuse. A couple can slip in and a couple can slip out and around this place, you’d hardly notice one or two more,” he said.