By chance, we happened across the John Deere Historic Site as we drove through Dixon, Illinois. We were needing a break, and this seemed like a perfect place to get out and stretch our legs for a bit.
For those of you who know me, you’ll know I have a love for both history and farming, so I get a real kick out of seeing places like this, especially out in the open. The John Deere Historic site didn’t disappoint. Despite the lack of tractors, Amanda and the boys really enjoyed it too. The restored homeplace being a real highlight.
We arrived close to closing time, but entry was free, so we expected to wander around, aimlessly looking at ancient green and yellow Deere branded tractors and farm machinery for 40 mins before the gates shut.
But there were no tractors here at all! For that, they do have a separate John Deere Tractor and Engine museum 200 miles away in Iowa. This was about the original forge, built by John Deere to make his famous self-scouring steel plough, decades before tractors came along.
The steel plough was a revelation and made the land much more accessible to farmers.
The site also features a museum built over the area archeologically excavated over where the original building was located. The area is preserved, and we could see the original foundations and features of the building.
The whole original site has been lovingly preserved and maintained, and we were treated to an extensive tour of the facility, including his self-built home, and a recreation of his forge.
The kitchen above was warm and cosy. The interesting thing was that the range had a second oven built into the chimney! This clever addition was double skinned, allowing the smoke to travel all around the oven on it’s way up, heating it up but not allowing any smoke into the secondary oven itself
What was really impressive about the house, is that it was quite liveable even by today’s standards. Only thing missing was an indoor toilet.
Bed even looks comfy – I’ve slept in worse!
Once the house tour was complete, we were offered the chance to see the forge in action – little did we know that there would be a live demonstration!
The forge was no set-piece, everything worked, and was in use – you could spend hours looking at all the equipment. Nice to see it in it’s original environment, so often you only see these as antiques, or worse, rusty scrap.
The kids even got in on the action!
Huge thanks Dave who gave us a great demonstration of how the forge worked, and he even gave the hook he made to Daniel!
Huge thanks also to Shelby for generosity of her time, and her advice on local places to try for food afterwards – it was a real treat!
