Kewanee Equipment mfg - early history

Back to the original post about the Kewanee elevator, we had such an elevator when I was a kid. Been trying hard to remember what brand it was. It may have been a Kewanee, but most of those I've seen were galvanized.......if memory serves, ours was a faded orange but not AC orange.

Only brands of these elevators I can find are Kewanee, Owatonna and John Deere. None look like what I remember.

We used ours a couple times to put ear corn in a snow fence crib, to put shelled corn into grain bins and to put small square bales into barn lofts. Seemed like a big job to move it, but as one tasked with putting hay in the loft without it, I saw it as a blessing from on high.

As to mention of a truck hoist, prior to installing a lift hoist on the truck itself, we had a drive on truck hoist. Raised the front wheels about 4 feet off the ground. The elevator itself has a fold down drag auger to move what came out the back of the truck over to the inclined elevator with the paddles on it.

Hoisting the truck up helped corn roll out the back but you still had a lot to shovel. Seems silly now to put a 14 year old kid in charge of driving grain trucks, but that was my job. By 16, I was running the combine and having to run the single axle grain truck too. Normal load was about 275 bu if you were taking it to town and over their scale. If local, I'd sometimes load it heavy to cut down on trips......325 bu plus and get her to squat. Got chewed on a couple times over that.

Steve

Had reason to visit a local Amish community a few years back, and one of the first things that stuck out was each farm seemed to have one of these elevators. Appeared to be using them for ear corn. Probably a good place to go looking for all the relics.

About 15 years ago, went to the home of a gent I needed some help from, and he was a collector of antique horse drawn farm equipment. He had 2 or 3 barns of it packed to the rafters. And many of them still in working condition. He must have had 20 or 30 different wood beam plows......and knew the history of each of them. Horse drawn drills, planters and harvesting equipment.

One of the true gems of his collection, according to him, was a piece of harvesting equipment.....seem to recall it was a corn binder......that had been manufactured in my home town. He said it was one of the best ever made.....and I'd never heard of them. Still the only time I've ever heard of them. And I"ve got a copy of a county history book that goes back to the beginning.....and no mention of them in it either.

Going back in time, we would probably be amazed to know how many little manufacturing outfits existed at the local level. Some no more than blacksmith shops that figured out how to build a better mousetrap. Either died with the owner, gave up or were bought up and consolidated. Latter been going on a long time.