My sister and I went on an adventure to central Illinois. One of our stops was the John Deere Historic Site, which celebrates the legacy of John Deere, the man who invented the steel plow. It happened like this:
It was years after Deere died that the company began making tractors, but, as we were reminded again and again during our tour, it all began here.
The building in the background of the photo (above) is now the gift shop. It was once the home of Deere’s neighbors. Our guide took us inside, supposedly to show us the difference in the construction of the two houses, but it was immediately apparent that this was just a ruse to get us inside the gift shop.
Deere came to Grand Detour (pronouced with the accent on the second syllable) in 1836 and built the front section of this house.
The back two sections were built later.
The woman who conducted our tour told us that the well on the porch still has water in it, and was very surprised when none of us wanted to go look to see if she was telling the truth.
This was the back window of the house. The bizarre head gazing out the window was not explained or pointed out to us.
The inside of the house was furnished with period pieces, none of which belong to the Deere’s, so I won’t bore you with photos.
Very near the time that Deere built the house, he also built his blacksmith shop. It has long disappeared, but an archaeological dig unearthed its remains, which are now protected by a building.
We also watched a video on Deere’s life in this space. In the video, and then again by the tour guide, we were asked to ponder the wonder that the John Deere company began right here.
Our last stop was the blacksmith shop, a reproduction built to the exact scale as the unearthed foundation.
A blacksmith named Rick, who obviously enjoys his job, gave us a short explanation of smithing, then created an iron decorative leaf on his forge.
He also asked us to stop for a moment and ponder the wonder of Deere. It was all beginning to feel like a walk-through commercial by this time, while still being interesting and impressively done.
The last stop on the tour was this statue of Deere. As near as I can reproduce our guide’s words, she said, “The anvil is too low for the height of the blacksmith, the anvil is also facing the wrong way. The horn goes on the blacksmiths left, no matter if he is right- or left-handed. And no blacksmith raises his hammer above his shoulder like that. But it’s a nice statue.”
After the tour, I was looking for a good place for a red chair photo. I thought of Rick, and figured he’d go along with it, but he was a big guy and I didn’t really want him sitting on the chair. I decided to ask him if I could get a shot of him standing in the doorway with the chair against the wall off to the side. As I was explaining this to him, he grabbed the chair and said, “This is your version of Flat Stanley.” I said, “Exactly.” He asked if I wanted a shot of it on the forge. Since the coals were still red hot, I declined, so he propped it on his anvil and posed. The shot doesn’t really make a lot of sense, but hey, so what?
