Starting the parade. Mount Aqua oil rig in background. They
drilled for oil in early teens and hit hot health waterquite a
health center was built. After the Montana earthquake, the water
failed and so did the resort.
Oscar O. Cooke, the man who started and runs Oscar’s
Dreamland at Billings, Montana, is a man of superlatives, and a
visit to his show is an unforgettable event.
Oscar is one of the most active men over 80 we have ever seen.
When he operates his 1906 Best steam traction engine, standing at
the controls 15 or more feet above the ground, he is an artist at
work. He handles it as if it were a choice riding horse.
When we visited Oscar’s Dreamland in 1981, the first hint we
got as we approached his grounds was the sight of three small
gliders rising and dipping above a lot of steam and smoke.
That was only the beginning. Once we were inside the gate,
roaming the multi-acre field, we were surrounded by Oscar’s
collection, which he calls the biggest private collection of farm
artifacts in the world.
Oscar was being interviewed for TV when we first found him.
Later we talked to him in the cook shack, a real vehicle from olden
days in which he was eating a speedy lunch.
He not only claims the biggest one-man collection of steam and
gas engines, but also the biggest one-man show. He also has the
tallest revolving clock in the world.
How many engines does he own?
He has about 45 steam traction engines, slightly more than 300
gasoline tractors, dozens of stationary gas engines, and over 100
threshing machines.
He is seeking three tractors, each a 30-60, to round out his
collection. One is a Fairbanks Morse’only one is known in the
U.S., and one in Canada’; a Case’I missed three or
four,’ and a Mogul. If he had those he would possess all the
30-60s that were ever in production. If you can help him, let him
know fast.
He owns a lot of other antique items alsothe tallest air motor
windmill, a biplane, antique cars, covered wagons, horsedrawn
equipment and a list that could go on and on. He’s got handsome
Belgian draft horses that draw carefully restored wagons.
And he’s got a lot of friends. The day we were there, all
kinds of buddies were running the engines. His family also works
with him.
Marcella, his wife, is ‘right in there pitching’ all the
time. She handles public relations, answers telephones, greets
arrivals, keeps the records and maintains watch on the
finances.
Marcie Ann, his daughter whom we met, was home for the summer
from Stephens College, in between studies for a prelaw degree. She
acts as ‘unofficial promotion chairperson’ for the Midwest.
Marcie has her own Rumely and runs a threshing machine.
This 1/3 scale Gaar-Scott was built by Bill Billings of
Wellington, Kansas. He brought it to Oscar’s since he had been
to all the towns named Billings, except Billings, Montana!
Wiley, Oscar’s son, has a small collection of motorcycles
which he is gearing up for traveling exhibitions.
My wife, Margaret, and I visited Oscar’s Dreamland for his
show last September with our cousins, Jean and John Baucus of
Helena and Sieben. To all of us, this was a delightful occasion.
While there we ran into Bill Mackay, who has a ranch at Roscoe, and
who has restored a number of choice antique cars. Bill is the new
president of the board of trustees of the Montana Historical
Society.
The parade at Oscar’s was stupendous, in line with
everything else that he does. It was a phantasmagoria of steam and
gas, with engines sometimes moving in circles clockwise and counter
clockwise, other times cutting straight through with never a
traffic tieup or a fender bender.
Oscar seemed to be everywhere on his big Best, standing up there
high above the other participants and piloting the heavy machine
with ease, while keeping an eye on the way the whole thing
proceeded.
Oscar is a man of many parts and experiences. He started out on
a farm, and as a teenager bought a farm of 160 acres in eastern
Kansas. He was 14, and he put $400 down on it.
‘I broke sod with a team of Molly mules,’ he recalls. He
grew watermelons on part of the land ‘most beautiful vines you
ever saw.’ He did threshing, then went into the machinery
business at Emporia, Kansas. Next he went to work for
Allis-Chalmers and was Omaha branch manager.
‘I helped develop the round baler,’ he states with
pride. ‘I have the No. 1 round baler.’ He also flew his own
plane.
In more recent years, he became a Montana rancher in the 1960s.
Now he devotes a lot of time to his collection and preparing for
the next show. The 1982 extravaganza is set for the third week in
September.
Oscar is not only a collector of engine she also collects
buildings.
He has established the village of Cookeville, made up of
restored buildings which he brought in from various near and
distant places.
Second oldest church steeple in Billings, Montana-still
original. The small log school house to the right was the first
school in Yellowstone County at Coulsonbefore there was a
Billings!
Smoke box door of 18 HP 1915 Rumely. Smoke box door of Reeves 20
HP, about 1911. This engine was shipped to Wyoming and only plowed
two daysthe owners thought that it burned too much coal.
The main building is a general store, complete with wooden
canopy to protect shoppers from the sun. Another used to be the
post office at Pompley’s Pillar, a Montana name that goes back
to the days when Lewis and Clark were exploring.
There’s a church, too a log cabin with a steeple that Oscar
says is the oldest in Billings. Inside it is a log pulpit, with the
top sawed off at a slant. A small ledge was allowed to remain,
‘so the preacher’s Bible would not slide off,’ Oscar
relates. There is a small old time pedal organ to accompany the
singing of hymns.
Latest accomplishment in Cookeville is the completion of the
barbershop. We don’t know if Oscar will take time to do the
shaving or sit still long enough to get one.
Whatever happens at Oscar’s Dreamland, no matter how happy a
time any visitor has, it can’t outdo Oscar’s. He has found
his true calling making Oscar’s Dreamland a dream come
true.
