Grant County Historical Society
P.O. Box 201
Milbank, SD 57252
605-938-4192 or 605-467-3940
arlo@grantcountysdmuseums.org
Click here for museum hours.
New for 2025!
October 19th, 2024: the arrival of our covered wagon at the Buggy Museum.
A chuckwagon will be created & be ready for the summer of 2025.
A major part of the process of transforming this former covered wagon to a
semi-modern chuckwagon is the painting of the major parts, starting with
the interior of the box. The color gray was chosen, a double-coat of paint
has been applied by Kadence, with all of the many interior steel pieces
painted black. The box interior is now completed.
In the spring of 2025, after completing the painting of our chuckwagon during the winter months, the tasks remaining included the constructing of & the fitting into the rear of the wagon the box that became the kitchen, the moving of the wagon outside & onto the new cement pad, the installation of an awning over the work area & the completion of a painted scene on the underside of the table. This table will be upright & in place for six (6) days of every summer week, making this original painting fitting for the time & era.
We are now ready for the new museum season of 2025 at the Buggy and
New Ag Museum in Stockholm, South Dakota!
Also new in 2025!
Upon David John Johnson's death last November, 2024, an offer was made to the Grant County Historical Society by his son, David Mark Johnson, of both of Dave's favorite old tractors, a 1938 Farmall Model F-20 & a 1948 John Deere Model B. Not much is known about the Farmall F-20 other than it was acquired by the Fogelberg brothers & used as a row crop tractor by them for many years.
The B John Deere, on the other hand, was purchased new by Henry Fogelberg in 1948 & used continuously over the many years, often joined on the farm by many different & much larger tractors, but never replaced.
Upon Dave's retirement as a nuclear physicist from the Sandia Weapons Lab in Albuquerque in 2005, he came back to the Fogelberg farm north of Stockholm every summer & "hayed" an acreage of native prairie grasses in the old-fashioned style of doing such things, using both of these tractors, especially the John Deere.
This activity each summer & over these years guaranteed that both tractors were kept in good running order, as well as being restored cosmetically at some point. Upon our receipt of these machines, all we needed to do was to start them up on the farm, drive the eight (8) miles to Stockholm, wash each tractor carefully & park them in our Tractor Museum.
Our 1912 John Deere, Letter C, manure spreader is now in its permanent location inside the New Ag Museum, where it will spend its many remaining days. This machine had been a part of the original collection of unrestored pieces that made up the Ag Museum in the 1980's.
During the summer & into the late fall of 2022, Dave Johnson, with Ken Knutson's assistance, began the process of a complete restoration with new wood, steel sand-blasting, some metal fabrication & a few quarts of paint. This is the result of their months of work.
This now fully functional manure spreader was demonstrated at the 2023 Twin Brooks Threshing Show by parking under the snout of a threshing machine for a few moments, filling it up with brand-new straw, then spreading it in the newly-created wheat stubble field. Dave did this twice before forever retiring this machine.
We continue to advertise the Brown Earth Indian Church as a unique and lovely venue for weddings.
