MOUNT VERNON — It’s one thing to have insights into the rich and complex past of an agrarian community, it’s quite another thing to be able to pass those insights along to others. The Knox County Agricultural Museum has had the insights in the form of a trove of displays which speak volumes about the history of life in Knox County over the last 200 years. But it is only with the opening this summer of a new wing on the museum that the museum has the room to spread out its collection, allowing visitors to view all those items, up close and personal.
“Half of what was in here was tucked in behind other items,” said museum coordinator Paul Hothem. “We couldn’t believe our eyes at the things we found.”
The museum was founded in 1986 to preserve artifacts from the rural past of Knox County. Response was staggering, giving the museum a flood of rare implements, tools, machines and vehicles that overran the first building before it was even finished. Subsequent additions in 1990 and 1996 expanded the display area of the museum, but later acquisitions have overgrown those areas as well. The new, two-story wing will add over 5,000 square feet of display room. This, added to other display halls and the reconstructed outbuildings, which include a one-room school house and a spring house, brings the museum’s area to over 20,000 square feet.
The upper floor of the new addition holds smaller tools and machines, including corn jabbers, hay forks, barrels, hand tools, lawn mowers and more. Early mechanical mowers included not only the familiar rotary, hand-pushed mower, but also mowers with short, spiral blades operated by interlocking gears. The antique barrels on display include one that was held together with stays made from thick grape vines instead of metal bands. Another display among the barrels is a huge old hollow tree trunk once used as a food trough.
One of the most unusual machines in the extension is striking because it is so unexpected. One tends to think of animals on a farm in the past getting plenty of exercise, unlike modern house-bound pets. But one of the machines the museum has acquired is a dog exerciser. Its structure is not unlike an elaborate though primitive treadmill, but it is all built out of wooden slats, chains and connecting metal pieces.
The bottom floor of the wing is devoted to larger vehicles and machines. Hothem said that one of the rarest items the museum has is a dump wagon, the 19th-century equivalent of a modern dump truck, designed to be drawn by four horses. There is also a Surrey-style buggy complete with the original runners which could be put on to replace the wheels for travel in snowy weather.
Hothem said that donations are still sought to build up the organization’s funds and to provide for future projects.
“What we have here is paid for, but we did have to dig into our funds to finish it,” Hothem said.
The final phase of the museum’s expansion will be a pole shed between the two wings, which could serve as a home to the largest items currently in the main hall, including two antique thrashers, large tractors, buggies and an early Centerburg school bus. Some of these larger pieces could be moved to the shed, opening up the display space in the main halls by 20 to 30 percent. This will improve a museum that has already been called one of the finest hidden treasures in the state of Ohio.
One of the newest, and largest, of the museum’s items is an early self-propelled John Deere combine donated by Chase Hunter. The combine was built around 1953 or 1954 and is steered from an open-air seat, as enclosed cabs were a later development. The combine is parked outside for the time being.
The Knox County Agricultural Museum is located on the Knox County Fairgrounds. The museum will be open every day during the Knox County Fair from 10 a.m. until at least 8:30 p.m. Hothem said that if people are still coming, docents would stretch the closing time out up to an extra hour. For further information, contact Paul Hothem at 397-5778.