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Vos family tractor takes center stage at History Center agriculture display

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The Challenger, other farm equipment on display during special Buffalo Days hours Sunday
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By
Lori Sorenson

The four-cylinder “put, put, put” of a vintage farm tractor filled the History Center with a nostalgic farm fuel aroma on May 16 when a newly restored 1936 Massey Harris Challenger assumed its place near the windows of the round showroom.
The “iron mule,” as it was called in its day, is the centerpiece of an agriculture display that’s rotating in to replace the Luverne Fire Truck that’s held the spot for the past year.
“This was our intent all along for that space,” said Rock County Historical Society President Betty Mann. “We’ve had the Luverne Fire Truck on display since we first opened, and now we’re rotating in an agriculture history display.”
Phil Vos drove from Persia, Iowa, to deliver the antique tractor, which had spent its working years in Rock County.
It first belonged to Phil’s grandparents, the late Mike and Anna Vos, who bought it brand new in 1937 to use on their 320-acre dairy farm near Hardwick.
“This was his first tractor,” Phil said. “Before that he farmed with mules.
Living up to its reputation as the “iron mule,” the tractor and mules did all the heavy lifting for the Vos farm until 1948 when another tractor was added to the fleet.
And even then it was still used with a loader bucket and PTO shaft for daily chores like cleaning cattle yards and augering grain into bins and bales into the haymow.
Their son, Homer (Phil’s uncle), and his wife, Fran, took over the farm operation in 1964 and continued using the tractor until 1974 when Mike died.
“Grandpa was using the tractor for picking corn and he died during harvest,” Phil said.
The farming operation was sold in 1997, and Fran and Homer remained on the acreage where they stored the tractor in a shed until Homer died in 2012 and Fran moved to Luverne.
Their son, David Vos, co-owned and took care of the tractor in Brookings, South Dakota, until his cousin, Phil, took it to Iowa in 2014 to restore it.
Phil remembers hauling it out after more than 20 years of storage to look it over.
“We pulled it about five feet and popped the clutch and it started right up,” said Phil, an avid restorer of vintage machinery and automobiles.
“This one was special, obviously,” he said, referring to the tractor’s history in his family.
Phil and his wife, Millie, brought the Challenger back to their home in Persia, Iowa, where he began restoring it in February 2016.
With help from a friend, Rick Newland, the project was finished later that year in time for the 2016 Carstens Farm Days in September near Shelby, Iowa.
The following year it joined the Hardwick Jubilee Days parade for the town’s 125th anniversary celebration in 2017.
After several other appearances, the vintage farm tractor is now resting in the showroom window of the History Center (the former Ford dealership) in downtown Luverne.
“I finally got my garage back,” said Phil’s wife, Millie, who recorded the restoration process in a photo album that is on display with the tractor.
The Vos tractor joins dozens of other historic Rock County agriculture artifacts, including farm pieces from the early settlers to the establishment of an organized agricultural community.
Of particular interest is a true to scale model (roughly 3 feet tall) of a grain elevator donated by Tri-State Insurance. Equipment, photos, video and hands-on items are available for visitors.
The History Center’s hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Special hours for Buffalo Days this weekend will include 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday for the annual Tales from the Graves re-enactments. Call (507) 283-2122 or email rcmuseum@gmail.com.
 
Challenger had only
two-year production run
The Challenger was Massey-Harris’s first row crop planter tractor and was well received during its short production run from 1936 through 1937. In 1938 Massey still made the Challenger, but that year they started making them red.
Steel wheels were standard equipment on the 1936 model, drive wheels measured 52” in diameter with a face of 8” that mounted 28 2 ½” X 5” spade lugs per wheel.
Rubber-tired wheels were available as an extra cost option. The rubber-tired version also measured 52 inches, giving the tractor 25 inches of crop clearance.
The rear tread stance was adjustable from 52 to 80 inches to switch from 38-inch rows to 40-inch planting rows.
The Challenger was provided with a rear power take off, and a PTO-driven powered implement lift was available as an extra cost option. Individual rear-wheel brakes were standard and gave the Challenger the ability to turn on a dime.

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