He's been obsessed with John Deere tractors since he was a kid. Now he's opening his own museum
Dave McEachren, 43, of Glencoe, Ont., has been collecting John Deere tractors since he was 18 and is working on displaying them in a museum on his property. (Submitted by Dave McEachren)Dave McEachren's love of John Deere tractors began when he was a youngster growing up on a farm in southwestern Ontario."I was a backyard sandbox farmer before I was a full-time farmer," said McEachren, 43, of Glencoe, who also worked at a John Deere dealership as a teenager.For years, McEachren's family farmed — beef cows, then cash crops — almost exclusively using John Deere tractors. It's what inspired McEachren to start collecting the equipment, and he's now amassed over thirty 1950s-era tractors and thousands more pieces of memorabilia. The cream of the crop? McEachren is opening a museum on his own property later this summer.Since I was probably 16, I've always had plans to put up a building for my collection.- Dave McEachren, John Deere collector"I built a brand new dedicated building," said McEa
Dave McEachren's love of John Deere tractors began when he was a youngster growing up on a farm in southwestern Ontario.
"I was a backyard sandbox farmer before I was a full-time farmer," said McEachren, 43, of Glencoe, who also worked at a John Deere dealership as a teenager.
For years, McEachren's family farmed — beef cows, then cash crops — almost exclusively using John Deere tractors. It's what inspired McEachren to start collecting the equipment, and he's now amassed over thirty 1950s-era tractors and thousands more pieces of memorabilia.
The cream of the crop? McEachren is opening a museum on his own property later this summer.
Since I was probably 16, I've always had plans to put up a building for my collection.- Dave McEachren, John Deere collector
"I built a brand new dedicated building," said McEachern, who retired from farming three years ago when the family sold most of the operation. "Since I was probably 16, I've always had plans to put up a building for my collection."
In the 1830s, John Deere, a blacksmith from Vermont, moved to Illinois. By 1837, he began his company building plows for local farmers. By 1918, it had produced its first two tractor models.
"Of the Fortune 500 companies, the John Deere trademark is the oldest trademark in the United States," said McEachren.
McEachren bought his first vintage John Deere tractor when he was 18: an old, beat-up 1959 model 430 row crop utility tractor.
Before that, a young McEachren was fascinated by the company's companion replica tractor toys. At age 10, he attended a toy collector fair.
"And I said to my mom, 'This is something I want to do,' so we went that day and I bought my first toy from a local John Deere dealer, and that was the first toy in my collection that I was keeping to not play with."
It was a replica of a Waterloo Boy, one of John Deere's first tractor models.
McEachren has travelled across the United States for collector shows and events, and to pick up tractors he's purchased.
"The 1950s were a transitional period" for John Deere, said Neil Dahlstrom, author of Tractor Wars and heritage manager with the company. "They were the last of John Deere's two-cylinder tractors, but boasted increased horsepower, new operator comforts and updated styling."
"Deere began to analyze yield data from a million farmers beginning in 1953," said Dahlstrom. "In many ways, tractors from the 1950s were the last of a bygone era, soon replaced by larger, more sophisticated equipment that once again made agriculture more productive and profitable."
McEachren hasn't firmed up an official opening date for his museum, but hopes it'll be ready by end of summer.
"I'm so happy that Dave is realizing his dream,"said Dahlstrom.
"Collecting is a passion, but even more impressive is his desire to share everything he's learned with those around him," he said. "Collectors like Dave spend their time and money to preserve important parts of agricultural history.
"His museum will be first class."
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