Oldest Deere displayed

Twenty-five years ago this week, the oldest known existing John Deere tractor was on display at Jay County Fairgrounds.

An Aug. 30, 1995, story in The Commercial Review featured the tractor and its owner, Frank Hansen of Rollingstone, Minnesota.

Climbing aboard the tractor with a crowd of about 25 gathered around him, Hansen said, “Well, we’re going to give her a whirl and see what happens.”

Then, the 1918 all-wheel-drive John Deere came alive. Hansen drove it backward and forward for just a couple of minutes at the 30th annual Tri-State Antique Tractor and Engine Show at Jay County Fairgrounds. (John Deere was the featured tractor that year.)

Hansen affectionately referred to the machine as “Old 79” because it was the 79th John Deere tractor ever produced. Of the 200 all-wheel-drive tractors the company made between 1914 and 1919, it was at that time the only known to still exist.

It was displayed next to a 1945 Ex 101 John Deere that was also the last of its kind in existence.

But it was Hansen’s gem that had the air of a carnival wonder.

“Come on, you have to see it,” two boys said as they dragged an older couple toward the display.

The boys then waited in line for Hansen’s autograph.

It was Hansen’s second trip to Portland, part of a plan to show the tractor at 25 shows in 1995. (It had been displayed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in 1963.

Hansen expressed pride in his treasure, which he bought after stumbling upon the machine at a Minnesota farm in 1948.

“As a matter of fact, if I didn’t get the tractor when I did, two years later it would have been turned into scrap,” he said.