With the help of Jim and Carlin I got to finish a job that I had started a couple years ago. When we have events at that farm I usually have Jeff pull some of the old tractors out and let kids climb on them and have their pictures taken. Since it is such a highlight I wanted to have a old tractor permanently on display when we opened the heritage center. I went with a Fordson because it was one of the more common tractors of the 1920's with almost 775,000 made.
The Fordson name has an interesting story. The tractor was developed by auto giant Henry Ford. Because of the success of his car, others took the name Ford and applied it to a whole series of products to gain the market recognition that Ford had made. The Ford tractors actually had nothing to do with Henry. However, Henry was very interested in agriculture and wanted to mass produce tractors and make them affordable to the common man like he had done for the car. When he went to make the tractor he had to figure out a new name since Ford was already taken and chose Fordson.
Our Fordson was made in 1926. I purchased it from central Illinois and drug it up to Glenview. It has always been a popular stop of families but I just had not had time to give it the proper paint job. So Jim and Carlin helped me get a long overdue job done. The colors used are exactly the same as what it would have had as it rolled off the Ford line in the 1920's.
