Wednesday, November 22, 2017
44TH ANNUAL HERMISTON FARM FAIR
East Oregonian
Page 7C
Boise community center turned into
ANTIQUE TRACTOR MUSEUM
By SEAN ELLIS
EO Media Group
B
OISE — Fifty antique tractors
displayed in and around the $70
million community center in
downtown Boise are a nod to the
state’s agricultural roots.
But they’re much more than that, said
Rob Bearden, a mechanic who maintains
them and provides tours of the tractors
every Wednesday.
“These aren’t just a bunch of old trac-
tors,” he said. “These are national trea-
sures.”
The tractors are at Jack’s Urban Meet-
ing Place, a recently opened community
gathering center funded by the family of
J.R. Simplot, who founded the J.R. Sim-
plot Co., which produces frozen french
fries and other agricultural products.
Simplot, who died in 2008, was
known as Mr. Spud because of his role in
putting Idaho potatoes on the map.
Bearden said farmers and other peo-
ple from all over the nation and around
the world have come to see the tractors,
some of which are literally one of a kind
or the last of their kind.
“We’ve got tractors here that you’re
not gong to see anywhere else,” said
Bearden, who is known around the
JUMP facility as the “Tractor Doctor.”
“We’ve got the only ones,” he said
slowly to emphasize the uniqueness of
some of the tractors. “There aren’t any
more.”
That includes Kerosene Annie, a 1909
Rumely prototype which was only sold
once, to J.R. Simplot, and a 1912 Olm-
stead, a four-wheel-drive articulating
tractor that is the only one left of 28
made.
Idaho Farm Bureau Federation public
affairs representatives Jake Putnam and
Steve Ritter were the last media mem-
bers to interview Simplot.
Putnam remembers Simplot talking
about his vision to create an agricultural
museum with antique tractors and said
it’s amazing to see that vision become
reality.
“I never get tired of going by there
and looking at those tractors,” he said.
“It brings agriculture to an urban setting,
SEAN ELLIS/EO MEDIA GROUP
Ron Bearden, a mechanic, stands next to a 1914 Avery Return Flue, one of 50 antique tractors at a community gathering place in down-
town Boise. The tractors are a nod to Idaho’s agricultural roots, and some of them are the last of their kind, Bearden said.
which is where it should be.”
The tractors are among 110 that Sim-
plot purchased in 1998 from an agricul-
tural museum owned by Oscar Cooke, a
Montana farmer who died in 1995.
Bearden said Cooke had the largest
collection of tractors and farm imple-
ments in the world.
“J.R. bought the best of the best,” he
said. “He bought the rarest, most unique
and the most diverse, oddball tractors
that were out there. The scope of this
stuff is awe-inspiring.”
He said he’s learned a lot about many
of the tractors from older farmers who
visit the center.
“Every day’s a school day around
here,” he said. “You’re constantly learn-
ing about this stuff.”
The tractors date from the 1890s to
1939.
Kathy O’Neill, JUMP’s community
engagement director, told Capital Press
in an email that Simplot was “an entre-
preneur, a risk-taker, a man who followed
his dreams and wanted the same for ev-
eryone he met. The tractors are great
icons of the agricultural past that capture
that innovative and resourceful spirit that
will help lead us into the future.”
To sign up for a tractor tour, call (208)
639-6610 or email JUMP at tours@
jumpboise.org
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