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- Young in Years.
Heidrick's collection began to grow just after World War II.
"When the war was over, farmers were cleaning up their property," Heidrick says. "We had to hurry to get stuff before it was chopped up for the junkyard."
At that time, there were no collectors to speak of.
As the number of collectors grew, Heidrick scrambled to keep ahead of the game.
"Oh, there was lots of great stuff that got away," he says. "Some was cut up with torches; they'd get $300 for scrap for one piece. Now, you'd get $75,000 for it. But it was just junk until somebody put some effort into it."
And effort is, clearly, Fred Heidrick's long suit. The museum proves that. It is a professionally designed facility, with attractive displays, computer interactives, and knowledgeable volunteers. Every related detail - parking, signage, rest areas, refreshments, loaner wheelchairs and strollers ~ has been carefully anticipated.
"People always say it's so much more than they expected," says Linda Lucchesi.
The staff has worked aggressively to make the Heidrick Center more than just a museum. Special programming includes regularly scheduled entertainment, display of exotic livestock, swap meets, threshing with vintage equipment, school tours, and on-site graduate-level courses. Last summer, 3,000 children wandered through an eight-acre maze cut out of a field of corn, and with a nod to the past, a new Caterpillar model was unveiled in the center's parking lot. On Father's Day, a truck driving school in the museum's parking lot put dads behind the wheels of semi-trailer trucks and a city bus.
"Where else could you do that?" Melissa Jordan asks.