Don Sites, Kansas wheat farmer and rancher, has one of the
largest collections of cast iron implement seats in the world,
housed in his Country Museum near Grinnell.
He also has one of the top collections of barbed wire.
Sites was the sparkplug in organizing the Cast Iron Implement
Seat Collectors Association, which holds its annual reunions at
tractor show. The 1979 reunion was well attended, drawing implement
seat collectors from about 15 states.
Sites now has nearly 600 cast iron seats, mostly from American
makers but also including some from England, Holland, France,
Austria, Scotland, and Germany. Some of them are the last remaining
examples of their kind.
Sites has now written three illustrated volumes on the seats.
The first came out in 1969; the second, in 1972, and the third, in
1977. If you have one of these iron seats, you can probably find a
photo of it in a Sites’ book.
In the introduction to the third book, Sites speaks of the
farming revolution which struck in the late 1800s, easing the
farmer’s way.
‘One of these advances toward modern farming,’ he
states, ‘was the addition of the place for the farmer to ride
his equipment rather than walk behind. These seats were made of
cast iron and used on horse drawn implements such as cultivators,
mowers, harrows, plows, ‘rakes, planters and other implements
made during the period.’
Sites and his collections have been featured in Smithsonian
magazine, Americana magazine, and numerous newspapers.
He bought the old Union Pacific railroad depot at Grinnell and
converted it for museum use. Displays include the cast iron seats
and barbed wire. His wife, Alberta, who assists him, exhibits her
collection of lightning rod balls, which many of today’s
farmers will remember, and windmill counterweights, which weigh 28
to 150 pounds. There are also about 60 weather vanes, all
different.
The couple also has a collection of 31 patent models, including
horse drawn mower, baler and windmill models. Over 2,200
farm-related items are on exhibit.
The Sites’ children help Dalen, 21, and Maria, 18, who
primarily run the museum.
