Corn shelter research

Didn't get lunch yesterday because I spent the whole time buried in the interweb. Also was up late Last night. Lol What I found is interesting. I started with googling J. I. Case implement co. At first I only fou.d references to a fire in 1910 that damaged the building. But it listed a couple other businesses that were in it with the case company. They were the Great Northern Implement company and the Rock Island plow company. If you know case history you should recognize those names.

Next I thought I would check for references at the library. So I googled that to get an address, but they have some stuff online and I found a pic of the building and more references to all 3 companies.

Someone suggested that the company was a fake because nothing about it is in any records at case. So I thought that I would find the owner of the building. So I called the courthouse to see how to go about that. I got a very nice lady on the phone who was incredibly helpful. After explaining what I was after she worked her magic and came up with both the actual address which was 622 3rd st. Minneapolis and mention of the articles of incorporation for the company.

That led to googling the articles kof incorporation. That was the jackpot. The J.I.Case Implement company was started by Mr. Case and a bunch of others. I haven't seen the actual articles yet and all references so far list him as Mr. Case. They do say that this was done before his death though, so I suspect it was Jerome. There were a bunch of others involved including Wallis from the tractor company, Heider from the tractor company, the owners of the Rock Island Plow company a others. Those names should ring a bell. The purpose of the company was to market equipment from the thrashing machine company, the plow works, the Rock Island Plow company and many others under the case name. I suspect the sheller was made by one of those companies and sold under the agreement. I haven't been able to find the company yet.

My nephew sent me pics of at least one other seller similar, only sold by the plow works. It says on this one made for the case plow works.








That's as far as I've gotten so far. I'm going to keep looking for the company that actually made the sheller. If I find anything I'll let you know.

Very interesting

Great trip down the rabbit hole! It is fun to learn the history of things, and how many people and ideas were commingled through out time, and then forgotten, I hope you find more and share it with us!
Mike

Well Done Jon! CM

You can burn a lot of time searching for information on the www. So quick and easy. No heavy books to climb up the ladder at the library to bring down. No searching thru the periodical scanner for magazine articles. Just touching of the keys to search. I try to save those research projects for cold rainy or snowy days when I'm better off indoors. In this age of rewriting history, it looks like your finding the real deal. thanks Jon for all your posts. From farming to hauling to fixin to weldin you post very interesting stuff. gobble

Great work.

Thanks for your research on this Jon. I have a letterhead from Town and Country Motors, the Case car dealer @ 212-214 South 10th Street Minneapolis. I have always wondered if this was also the address of the Case Branch House. Don

John, reading your last post that sheller was built for the JI Case Plow Works a totally separate outfit from the JI Case TM Co.

Larry

The pics of the one in the second post clearly says plow works, so you are correct. And I found that interesting. But the info I have is that the implement co was set up to market both. The one in the second post is a different model for sure and I believe from a different manufacturer as well. I've been trying to find the manufacturer of mine but its been tough. Right now I'm thinking it was made at acme in Illinois, but I'm not sure yet. There are two distinct differences between mine and most others. One is that the gears are on the crank side on mine and on the flywheel side on most
Mine also has a square shaft for the crank where all others are round. Only the Acme made shellers have those features. So now I'm leaning towards Acme as the manufacturer. As I said in my post, the intended purpose of the implement company was to market equipment from both the thrashing machine company and the plow works as well as others. What surprised me was that the plow works also had their own.

If you are interested, other wooden equipment like fanning mills show up from time to time on Craigs List and Facebook Market Place.

rmn.craigslist.org/zip/d/adams-old-clipper-seed-cleaner/7413328545.html

Here's a postcard out of my paper collection. I might have a couple other pieces on the J.I.Case Implement Co. but this is the only one I could put my hands on at the moment.

As you can see, the address is printed as 308, 310 and 312 Third Ave. instead of 622 3rd St. as you stated. Maybe they moved after the fire?

I came across several mentions of moves as the out grew the buildings. That is an interesting piece. I would love to see more if you have it.