Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer's Harvesting Implements

c. 1920s Letz Model 244 Type A Feed Grinder

This feed grinder, sometimes called a buhr mill or grinding mill, was made by the Letz Manufacturing Company in Crown Point, Indiana. Looking around this part of the exhibit, you will quickly notice this is one of four Letz feed grinders.
The Letz Manufacturing Company had a long history before the company produced Stuhr Museum's feed grinders. The company was founded by Louis Letz, a German immigrant to the United States. Louis, the son of a German farm machinery builder in Steinbach, Hallenberg, Germany, first settled with his wife and three young children in Chicago, Illinois. Growing weary of the big city, Louis and his family moved to Crown Point, Indiana, in 1881, where he started the Crown Point Manufacturing Company. He soon began manufacturing his first feed mill.
Spurred on by supporters, Letz entered his mills into several competitions, including the 1890 Paris Fair, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. He garnered awards and acclaim at these events, and his company slowly grew. Louis died in 1908, but his children, George, John, Otto, William, Ludwig, Eva, and Carol continued the business. George, John, and William published several patents for feed grinders and similar machinery during the 1910s to 1930s. The company closed its doors in 1965 after eight decades in the feed grinder business.
Feed grinders first came on the scene by the 1860s, although many farmers did not have a horse treadmill to power them. By the early 1900s, however, as more and more farmers purchased not just horse treadmills but early gas engines like the examples here at Stuhr Museum, the feed grinder became very popular. The Letz Manufacturing Company was one of many companies developing very effective mills for grinding a wide variety of plants into feed. The four Letz grinders here at Stuhr Museum show part of the offerings farmers had to choose from as they considered how they were going to feed their cattle and pigs in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1930s, the hammermill gradually replaced the feed grinder, or buhr mill, as the tool for preparing animal feed.

This feed grinder has a series of patent dates molded onto it, including:
October 24, 1911, corresponding to patent 1006554, a patent for a grinding mill issued to George Holland Letz and John Holland Letz, for which we cannot find a pdf image online;
May 2, 1916, corresponding to patent 1181231, a patent for a grinding buhr issued to John Holland Letz, which you can view as a pdf here;
September 6, 1916, which may actually be September 5, 1916, corresponding to patent 1197491, a patent for a grinding machine issued to John Holland Letz and William Holland Letz, which you can view as a pdf here;
April 24, 1917, corresponding to patent 1223497, a patent for a grinding machine issued to John Holland Letz, which you can view as a pdf here;
January 17, 1922, corresponding to patent 1403698, a patent for a roughage grinder issued to John Holland Letz, which you can view as a pdf here;
January 31, 1922, corresponding to patent 1404981, a patent for a universal grinder issued to John Holland Letz, which you can view as a pdf here.

You can see a video of a Letz Model 110 in action, powered by a Farmall tractor and used to grind up whole corn cobs, by clicking or touching here. You can view another video of another Letz feed grinder in action, powered by a 1940s John Deere engine, by clicking or touching here.

From The Country Gentleman, vol. LXXXIII,
no. 50 (December 14, 1918).

1931 Replica McCormick Reaper

A copy of Cyrus McCormick’s 1831 reaper, this replica reaper was built by International Harvester Company in 1931 to celebrate the machine’s centennial. I.H.C. made about 300 of these replicas and gave them to colleges, museums, and individuals throughout the U.S. and Canada. Many of these replica reapers were put on display for the public. Along with these replicas, I.H.C. also had a commemorative coin minted to celebrate the centennial in 1931.
Successfully tested in July 1831, the McCormick reaper was one of the most significant inventions of the 19th century. By studying this replica – you are looking at the rear from the walkway – you can see firsthand the reaper’s many significant parts. 1) It has a straight sickle bar at the front of the platform that reciprocated side to side as the reaper was pulled forward, the sickle bar being attached to the wheel axle by gears. 2) It has guards or fingers (they look like teeth) sticking out front with the sickle bar. Those guards guide the grain into the sickle bar blade and hold the grain so it gets cut cleanly and falls neatly onto the platform. 3) It has a reel that revolves, pushing the grain into the sickle bar while holding the grain heads up as the stalks get cut. 4) It has a platform to catch the grain as it falls. A person would rake the cut grain off into piles to be tied. 5) It has a wide wheel directly behind the hitched horse. That wheel is attached by gears to all of the moving parts so that it activated those parts as the reaper was pulled forward. 6) It has a line of draft wherein the horse walked on grain that had already been cut while the reaper cut standing grain. And 7) It has a divider on the side of the platform opposite the horse and wheel which neatly divided the cut grain from the standing grain.

From Reuben Gold Thwaites, Cyrus Hall
McCormick and the Reaper, published in 1909.

The original inventor of this reaper was Cyrus Hall McCormick. The great-grandson of Scotch-Irish immigrants, Cyrus was born on February 15, 1809 in Virginia. Cyrus’ father, Robert, was an inventive farmer who began working on designs for a reaper as early as 1809. After helping his father with his later reaper designs, which were mildly effective, Cyrus developed his own reaper and successfully demonstrated it, as stated above, in July 1831. After moving to Chicago in 1847, Cyrus became business partners with C. M. Gray. That partnership only lasted a few months. In October 1848, Cyrus formed McCormick, Ogden & Company along with William B. Ogden and William E. Jones. By September 1849, Ogden and Jones sold their share to McCormick, leaving him with the business.

After splitting with Ogden and Jones, Cyrus brought his brothers, Leander and William, to help him with the business, and they helped him turn his company into one of the largest in the world. After William died in 1865, Cyrus and Leander got into a series of disputes, probably relating to incidents from their long past together. On August 11, 1879, the two brothers organized McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, with Cyrus receiving three-fourths interest and Leander one-fourth. Personal problems, however, continued to plague their relationship. After Cyrus died in 1884, problems arose between Leander and Cyrus’ family. Finally, in 1890, Cyrus’ widow, Nancy, and their son, Cyrus, Jr., bought Leander’s share in the company for $3.25 million, a very large amount of money at that time. Leander died in 1900. In 1902, the McCormick heirs became part of the group that created International Harvester Company; that group included stockholders and managers of the Milwaukee Harvester Company, the Deering Harvester Company, the Plano Harvester Company, and the Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company.

Notes

Information on McCormick can be found in C. H. Wendel, 150 Years of International Harvester (Sarasota, FL: Crestline Publishing Company, 1981).
You can see McCormick's 1847 patent for his reaper, patent 5335, by clicking or touching here.

c. 1920s Letz Model 110 Type A Feed Grinder

This feed grinder (serial #801768), sometimes called a buhr mill or grinding mill, was made by the Letz Manufacturing Company in Crown Point, Indiana. Looking around this part of the exhibit, you will quickly notice this is one of four Letz feed grinders.
The Letz Manufacturing Company had a long history before the company produced Stuhr Museum's feed grinders. The company was founded by Louis Letz, a German immigrant to the United States. Louis, the son of a German farm machinery builder in Steinbach, Hallenberg, Germany, first settled with his wife and three young children in Chicago, Illinois. Growing weary of the big city, Louis and his family moved to Crown Point, Indiana, in 1881, where he started the Crown Point Manufacturing Company. He soon began manufacturing his first feed mill.
Spurred on by supporters, Letz entered his mills into several competitions, including the 1890 Paris Fair, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. He garnered awards and acclaim at these events, and his company slowly grew. Louis died in 1908, but his children, George, John, Otto, William, Ludwig, Eva, and Carol continued the business. George, John, and William published several patents for feed grinders and similar machinery during the 1910s to 1930s. The company closed it doors in 1965, after eight decades in the feed grinder business.
Feed grinders first came on the scene by the 1860s, although many farmers did not have a horse treadmill to power them. By the early 1900s, however, as more and more farmers purchased not just horse treadmills but early gas engines like the examples here at Stuhr Museum, the feed grinder became very popular. The Letz Manufacturing Company was one of many companies developing very effective mills for grinding a wide variety of plants into feed. The four Letz grinders here at Stuhr Museum show part of the offerings farmers had to choose from as they considered how they were going to feed their cattle and pigs in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1930s, the hammermill gradually replaced the feed grinder, or buhr mill, as the tool for preparing animal feed.
You can see a video of a Letz Model 110 in action, powered by a Farmall tractor and used to grind up whole corn cobs, by clicking or touching here. You can view another video of another Letz feed grinder in action, powered by a 1940s John Deere engine, by clicking or touching here.

From The Country Gentleman, vol. LXXXIII,
no. 50 (December 14, 1918).

c. 1920s Letz Model 210 Type A Feed Grinder

This feed grinder, sometimes called a buhr mill or grinding mill, was made by the Letz Manufacturing Company in Crown Point, Indiana. Looking around this part of the exhibit, you will quickly notice this is one of four Letz feed grinders.
The Letz Manufacturing Company had a long history before the company produced Stuhr Museum's feed grinders. The company was founded by Louis Letz, a German immigrant to the United States. Louis, the son of a German farm machinery builder in Steinbach, Hallenberg, Germany, first settled with his wife and three young children in Chicago, Illinois. Growing weary of the big city, Louis and his family moved to Crown Point, Indiana, in 1881, where he started the Crown Point Manufacturing Company. He soon began manufacturing his first feed mill.
Spurred on by supporters, Letz entered his mills into several competitions, including the 1890 Paris Fair, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. He garnered awards and acclaim at these events, and his company slowly grew. Louis died in 1908, but his children, George, John, Otto, William, Ludwig, Eva, and Carol continued the business. George, John, and William published several patents for feed grinders and similar machinery during the 1910s to 1930s. The company closed it doors in 1965, after eight decades in the feed grinder business.
Feed grinders first came on the scene by the 1860s, although many farmers did not have a horse treadmill to power them. By the early 1900s, however, as more and more farmers purchased not just horse treadmills but early gas engines like the examples here at Stuhr Museum, the feed grinder became very popular. The Letz Manufacturing Company was one of many companies developing very effective mills for grinding a wide variety of plants into feed. The four Letz grinders here at Stuhr Museum show part of the offerings farmers had to choose from as they considered how they were going to feed their cattle and pigs in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1930s, the hammermill gradually replaced the feed grinder, or buhr mill, as the tool for preparing animal feed.
You can see a video of a Letz Model 110 in action, powered by a Farmall tractor and used to grind up whole corn cobs, by clicking or touching here. You can view another video of another Letz feed grinder in action, powered by a 1940s John Deere engine, by clicking or touching here.

From The Country Gentleman, vol. LXXXIII,
no. 50 (December 14, 1918).

c. 1890 Letz Feed Mill Grinding Disk

This grinding disk, sometimes called a buhr or millstone, was made sometime after its October 7, 1890 patent date by the Letz Manufacturing Company in Crown Point, Indiana. You can view the patent for this millstone as a pdf here.
The Letz Manufacturing Company had a long history before the company produced Stuhr Museum's feed grinders and grinding disk. The company was founded by Louis Holland Letz, a German immigrant to the United States. Louis, the son of a German farm machinery builder in Steinbach, Hallenberg, Germany, first settled with his wife and three young children in Chicago, Illinois. Growing weary of the big city, Louis and his family moved to Crown Point, Indiana, in 1881, where he started the Crown Point Manufacturing Company. He soon began manufacturing his first feed mill.
Spurred on by supporters, Letz entered his mills into several competitions, including the 1890 Paris Fair, the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. He garnered awards and acclaim at these events, and his company slowly grew. Louis died in 1908, but his children, George, John, Otto, William, Ludwig, Eva, and Carol continued the business. George, John, and William published several patents for feed grinders and similar machinery during the 1910s to 1930s. The company closed it doors in 1965, after eight decades in the feed grinder business.
Feed grinders first came on the scene by the 1860s, although many farmers did not have a horse treadmill to power them. By the early 1900s, however, as more and more farmers purchased not just horse treadmills but early gas engines like the examples here at Stuhr Museum, the feed grinder became very popular. The Letz Manufacturing Company was one of many companies developing very effective mills for grinding a wide variety of plants into feed. The four Letz grinders here at Stuhr Museum show part of the offerings farmers had to choose from as they considered how they were going to feed their cattle and pigs in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1930s, the hammermill gradually replaced the feed grinder, or buhr mill, as the tool for preparing animal feed.

Farm Implements, vol. XXIX,
no. 9 (September 30, 1915).

c. 1930s Letz Model 430 Type A Feed Grinder

From The Country Gentleman, vol. LXXXIII,
no. 50 (December 14, 1918).

Feed grinders first came on the scene by the 1860s, although many farmers did not have a horse treadmill to power them. By the early 1900s, however, as more and more farmers purchased not just horse treadmills but early gas engines like the examples here at Stuhr Museum, the feed grinder became very popular. The Letz Manufacturing Company was one of many companies developing very effective mills for grinding a wide variety of plants into feed. The four Letz grinders here at Stuhr Museum show part of the offerings farmers had to choose from as they considered how they were going to feed their cattle and pigs in the 1920s and 1930s. During the 1930s, the hammermill gradually replaced the feed grinder, or buhr mill, as the tool for preparing animal feed.

As you can see, this feed grinder has a conveyor belt which made loading corn cobs into the machine much easier. A farmer or hired hand needed only to shovel the corn onto the conveyor and let the belt take it from there. Unlike the other feed grinders in this exhibit, this Model 430 also has an elevator which made it possible to load the finely ground feed into a bin for storage, or onto a truck for transport.
You can see a video of a Letz Model 110 in action, powered by a Farmall tractor and used to grind up whole corn cobs, by clicking or touching here. You can view another video of another Letz feed grinder in action, powered by a 1940s John Deere engine, by clicking or touching here.

c. 1926 John Deere Binder

This binder was made by Deere & Company of Moline, Illinois. Like the International Harvester Company binder here in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this John Deere binder was used to cut, gather, and bind grain together in one quick process. Unlike the International Harvester binder, this John Deere example is lacking the reels which would have been attached to the bar running across the top of the binder. If you look closely, you might see where the reels would have been attached to that bar.
As horses or a tractor pulled this binder forward, the reels, were they attached, would have rotated, pushing the grain into the sickle, or cutting bar at the binder's front. The sickle bar moved from side to side in order to better cut the grain. Guards – they look like teeth – held the grain in place as it was cut. After the sickle bar cut the grain, the reel pushed the grain onto the canvas.
The canvas, wrapped around a series of bars connected to gears, carried the cut grain past the driver's seat up into the binding mechanism. While inside the mechanism, the grain was bound with twine and then spit out onto the fingers you see near the walkway to the north. The bound grain then fell onto the ground where it sat waiting to be stacked, or shocked.

You can see a 36 second video of a John Deere binder very similar to this one in action, being pulled by a tractor, by clicking or touching here. Or you can watch a 3 minute and 8 second video of another John Deere binder being pulled by a John Deere tractor by clicking or touching here. To see a 2 minute and 35 second video of an International Harvester Company binder at work, and of men shocking the grain after it had been bound, click or touch here.

c. 1920s McCormick-Deering Reaper

This reaper was made by International Harvester Company in Chicago, Illinois. Like the nearby Royal Royce reaper, this reaper was used to cut and gather grain. Unlike the Royal Royce reaper, this example is lacking the seat which would be located on the walkway side of the main wheel. As this reaper was pulled forward by a pair of horses, the arm rakes, which are connected by gears to the wheel axle, rotated around. As the reaper moved forward, those arm rakes pushed the grain into the sickle bar at the front of the platform, holding the grain heads firm to get a clean cut. The grain then fell onto the platform where the arm rakes pushed it into piles off the platform's side. Hired hands or members of the farmer's family followed behind, gathering up the cut grain and binding it by hand with a piece of straw or with binder twine.

On August 12, 1902, International Harvester Company, the builder of this reaper, was formed when an agreement was made between people representing five different firms that specialized in harvesting equipment. Those firms were the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company; the Deering Harvester Company; the Plano Harvester Company; the Warder, Bushnell & Glessner Company; and the Milwaukee Harvester Company.

c. 1920s J. I. Case Threshing Machine

This threshing machine – sometimes called a thrashing machine, thresher, or separator – was made by the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company of Racine, Wisconsin. Like the Sawyer-Massey and Emerson-Brantingham threshers here in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this Case model was used to separate the edible part of grain from the rest of the plant. Before the development of the threshing machine, farmers and their families or hired hands usually crushed the grain plants (hay, chaff, and kernels) on the floor of their barns or on a specially created indoor or outdoor threshing floor.
The farmers, family members, and hired hands would stomp on the grain themselves, walk animals on top of the grain, or beat the grain with a flail to loosen the chaff from the kernels. Taking advantage of the breeze to separate the straw from the rest of the grain, they swept up the remaining grain to be further processed in a fanning mill or through winnowing which separated the chaff from the kernels. This was time-consuming and tiring work.
With the development of threshing machines, the time spent separating the kernels from the rest of the grain plant was significantly shortened. Instead of hauling the cut and bundled grain to the barn to be separated, the thresher could be hauled out into the field along with a steam engine or tractor. As the whole grain plants were carried to the thresher in wagons, the farmers or hired hands pitched the grain plants onto a conveyor at one end of the machine. Powered by the steam engine or tractor, the thresher's conveyor carried the grain plants into the thresher body where it first separated the straw from the chaff and kernels. The thresher then loosened and separated the kernels from the chaff, emptying the kernels into a wagon to be taken to market, and emptying the rest of the plant into a pile to be used as fodder, to be composted into the ground, or to be burned.
To get a feel for the look and the sound of a running thresher, you can view a 52 second video here.
This Case thresher has five faded but still readable patent dates printed on it, including:
May 2, 1899, which probably corresponds to patent 624333, which you can view here;
January 9, 1900, which corresponds to patent 640997, which you can view here;
November 27, 1906 and November 5, 1907, for which we have not found corresponding patents; and
December 23, 1919, which corresponds to patent 1325691, which you can view here.

Beginning production of threshers in the 1840s, Jerome Increase Case created a company that would continually be on the leading edge of not only the thresher market but also the tractor and other farm implement markets over the decades. In 1904, for example, Case's company was the first to announce that its threshers would be all steel, a change that caused a bit of a stir at the time. When the advantages of steel became apparent – the steel threshers weathered better than the wooden ones and did not catch fire like the wooden ones – many of the threshing machine companies were producing steel threshers within a few years. When Stuhr Museum's Case thresher was made – probably in the 1920s – the threshing machine was already being used less and less, gradually being replaced by the combine harvester, a machine that essentially combined the actions of a reaper and a thresher. By 1930, the end of the thresher's run as one of the most important tools on the farm was drawing near. Despite the thresher's decline, Case continued to build them until the early 1950s.

Notes

A great source for Case products, including the threshing machines, is C. H. Wendel, 150 Years of J. I. Case (Iola, WI: KP Books, 2005).

Late 19th to Early 20th Century Sawyer & Massey Threshing Machine

This threshing machine – sometimes called a thrashing machine, thresher, or separator – was made by the Sawyer & Massey Company, Limited, of Hamilton, Ontario. It was reportedly used near Ailsa Craig, Ontario, an agricultural center for that part of the Canadian province.
Started in Hamilton in 1835 or 1836 by John Fisher, the firm that would become Sawyer & Massey built its first threshing machine in 1836. That same year, Fisher was joined in the company by his cousin, Calvin McQuesten. In the early 1840s, they were joined by L. D., Payson, and Samuel Sawyer, nephews of McQuesten and highly skilled machinists. The Sawyers gradually became leaders of the company, and when Fisher died in 1856, the company became L. D. Sawyer & Company.
In 1889, Hart A., Walter E., and Chester D. Massey acquired 40% interest in the company, and Hart became president of the company. The company was soon reorganized and renamed the Sawyer & Massey Company, Limited. In 1910, the Masseys withdrew from the company and it was reorganized again, this time being called the Sawyer-Massey Company.

Like the Emerson-Brantingham and J. I. Case threshers here in Stuhr Museum's exhibit, this Sawyer-Massey model was used to separate the edible part of grain from the rest of the plant. Before the development of the threshing machine, farmers and their families or hired hands usually crushed the grain plants (hay, chaff, and kernels) on the floor of their barns or on a specially created indoor or outdoor threshing floor.
The farmers, family members, and hired hands would stomp on the grain themselves, walk animals on top of the grain, or beat the grain with a flail to loosen the chaff from the kernels. Taking advantage of the breeze to separate the straw from the rest of the grain, they swept up the remaining grain to be further processed in a fanning mill or through winnowing which separated the chaff from the kernels. This was time-consuming and tiring work.
With the development of threshing machines, the time spent separating the kernels from the rest of the grain plant was significantly shortened. Instead of hauling the cut and bundled grain to the barn to be separated, the thresher could be hauled out into the field along with a steam engine or tractor. As the whole grain plants were carried to the thresher in wagons, the farmers or hired hands pitched the grain plants onto a conveyor at one end of the machine. Powered by the steam engine or tractor, the thresher's conveyor carried the grain plants into the thresher body where it first separated the straw from the chaff and kernels. The thresher then loosened and separated the kernels from the chaff, emptying the kernels into a wagon to be taken to market, and emptying the rest of the plant into a pile to be used as fodder, to be composted into the ground, or to be burned.

Notes

You can access a longer narrative of the Sawyer & Massey Company's history, compiled by Roy Botterill, on a Smokstak thread here.