Club purchases caboose to add to show grounds

PENFIELD, Ill. — In addition to a special featured tractor each year, new items and events are added to the Historic Farm Days to give those attending lots of things to do during the show set for July 11-14.

This year, a caboose is planned to be added to the show grounds at Penfield.

“I tried to get the caboose two years ago,” said Kenny Knight, a member of the I&I Antique Tractor and Gas Engine Club.

“The Wheeler Foundation had an auction and a couple of guys and I went and looked at it,” Knight said. “We called the president of the club and said we need to buy the caboose, so we placed a bid and the tractor club ended up with it.”

A cement pad with rails is ready at the show grounds for the Missouri/Pacific railroad caboose to be placed.

“It is going to be south of the grandstand building,” Knight said. “The ground has been too soft to move it, but we’re hoping to have it moved for the show.”

The trucks are scheduled for the move, once the conditions make it possible to be completed.

“They need to get under some overpasses, but they got it all figured out,” the I&I Club member said. “It’s about a 15-mile trip.”

Knight has been a member of the tractor club for about 20 years.

“I walked around the show awhile and I thought I had a couple tractors that my family ran,” he recalled. “So, I’ll take about 10 tractors to the show this year.”

The collector owns from 25 to 30 antique tractors.

“We used to collect Minneapolis-Moline because that’s what our family farmed with east of Bismarck,” Knight said.

“We had plenty of them so we got into collecting Olivers and we have a fair amount of them,” he said.

Knight’s grandson likes to paint the tractors during the restoration process.

“We found a 1960 John Deere 4010 and he restored that tractor,” the collector said. “We have started getting into muscle tractors because collectors like the tractors they farmed with.”