Once the owners of a 15,000-square-foot antique shop, Bill and Angie Anderson were no strangers to farm primitives. Still, Bill admits there were a few gaps in his knowledge on antique hay trollies. “I probably sold 400 hay trolleys before I knew there were different kinds,” he says. But after a rare one got away for a song, he decided it was time to “get the book and start learning.”
Today, Bill is out of the antiques business and into hay trolleys. With a collection of some 300, including particularly rare and early pieces, he’s come up to speed fast. “I found Hay Trolley Heaven and saw all the photos and illustrations of trolleys,” he says, “and I turned to the network of antique shop owners I’d come to know over the years.”

At an auction, Bill paid $15 for his first trolley, a Rundle dating to the 1870s. “It rained 4 inches that day,” he says. “I was standing in mud up to my ankles.” He went home with nearly two dozen trolleys, none of which sold for more than $45. The Rundle was not complete by the time Bill found it. “I had to hunt for three years to find a drop pulley for it,” he says, “and I had to give up a Hawkeye pulley to get it.”
Bill prefers to buy complete trolleys, but he won’t rule out an incomplete piece if it is special. “If it still has its drop pulley, you should count yourself lucky,” he says. “Some of them can be tough to find.” Like many collectors, he’s been known to remove trolleys from old barns. “But I don’t take a trolley from a barn unless I know the barn is coming down,” he says, “because seeing an intact trolley is the only way children will ever understand what trolleys do and how they work.”

A remnant of early industrialization
Designed as a labor-saving device, the hay trolley was used to reduce the time and toil previously expended in the process of getting hay into storage. Some consider the timeframe of 1860-1920 to be the golden era of hay trolley production. Although trolley manufacture peaked between 1900 and 1945, the earlier period reflects a time of remarkable innovation and experimentation, according to the Hay Trolley Heaven website. It was also a time when many small-scale manufacturers clawed their way into the marketplace. Some of the most ornate and beautiful trolleys were produced by the smaller companies.


“The early trolleys are fascinating to me because of the era when they were being produced,” Bill says.
“With the tools and the technology they had back then, it’s amazing how ornate the trolleys were. I’m fascinated by barns for the same reason. If those old carpenters had the tools we have today, there’d be barns all over the country. I’m just fascinated that they were able to build something like these, using early equipment, that would last 100 years. Even with the technology we have now, I don’t think anything today is built to last 100 years.”
The earliest hay trolleys used in barns traveled on wood beams, either 2-by-4 inches or 4-by-4 inches. Later, in about 1890, steel track began to replace wood beams. Steel rails were more sturdy and easier to install. Steel-track trolleys were generally smaller, lighter and easier to return to position when empty.


Bill’s collection was launched by a wood beam trolley, but his favorite is a rod trolley, the type used to build huge haystacks outside. “You just don’t find many of them,” he says. In that configuration, trolleys ran along metal cables or steel rods strung between tall, wood tripods on each end of the stack. “Most of those are found on the west coast,” he says. “Back in the day, they didn’t put hay up in barns out on the coast. They put it in stacks outside.”
Antique hay trolleys in original condition
Bill also has a definite preference for trolleys in original condition. “I’m smart enough to know that, sooner or later, all of these are going on a hayrack,” he says. “And someday there’ll be two buyers: One wants original trolleys, and the other wants to paint them. If your trolleys are already painted, you lose half the market.”
As one with extensive experience in the antiques category, Bill brings a practiced eye to the process of acquisition. Like any collector, though, he can be swayed by a rare find, and he certainly knows the exhilaration that comes with stumbling onto a treasure. When he found his Jordan & Hamilton “owl eyes” trolley, he recalls, “everybody said I was the luckiest person alive.”
Bill doesn’t keep his collection hidden away. He displayed several pieces at a Hay Trolley Collectors Assn. exhibit at the Midwest Old Threshers Reunion in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, in 2022. In 2023, he and his wife will host the trolley collectors association at their home in Downing, Missouri. There, his trolley collection will be complemented by other treasures Bill has gathered, including cornshellers and local memorabilia.
A one-man barn raising
Saying he is frustrated by people who don’t display their collections, Bill is eager to get his collections displayed in his own museum. That will be a major undertaking, in that the museum will be housed in a barn he’s building himself.
Measuring 97 feet long, 26 feet wide and 35 feet tall, the barn – assembled with mortise and tenon construction – would be a big project for a team of builders. But Bill sees things differently. “People ask me why I’d want to build a barn,” he says. “I just wanted to see if I could. I love doing things with my hands, working with wood and metal, and I’m always looking for a challenge.”


There are no blueprints for the barn; there’s nothing on paper. “It is all in my head,” Bill says. He tore down nine barns to gather building materials for the project, and will use two semi-loads of “beetle kill” pine for the ceiling. “Everything else is repurposed,” he says, including an 11-foot cupola and a 700-lb. antique stained glass window, both of which he installed by himself.
In framing the structure, Bill got a helping hand from a friend, Alan Blessing, Downing. Otherwise, he’s going it alone. And that is a minor miracle, given the fact that he was critically injured in a wreck six years ago. “After that, the doctor said I’d never walk or talk again,” he says. “But I’m so bull-headed.”

How bull-headed? “I have some track for a round barn,” he says. “I’m going to have to have a round barn to put it in.” He’s already started gathering materials and plans to tear down another old barn to provide more. Bill knows he’ll need help. “I don’t think I can build a round barn by myself,” he allows. “It’ll probably be polygonal.”
For now, that project remains on the drawing board in his head. He’s been working on the first barn – which includes the couple’s living quarters – for four years. “It’s not done yet,” Bill says, smiling, “but mama says it’s going to be done by the time the show starts.” FC
For more information: Hay Trolley Heaven is online at haytrolleyheaven.com. The hay tool collectors group will meet at Bill Anderson’s home in Downing, Missouri, June 1-3, 2023. The event, which is open to the public, will close with an auction. Call Bill Anderson, (660) 216-3211, for details.
Leslie C. McManus is the senior editor of Farm Collector.
Originally published in the March 2023 issue of Farm Collector.