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Floyd County Museum seeks funds for tractor exhibit kiosk

An interactive electronic kiosk invites visitors to the Floyd County Historical Museum to experience newspaper clippings, audio, video and more than 800 photos from the day of and the aftermath of the May 15, 1968, tornado that struck Charles City. Press file photo by Bob Steenson
An interactive electronic kiosk invites visitors to the Floyd County Historical Museum to experience newspaper clippings, audio, video and more than 800 photos from the day of and the aftermath of the May 15, 1968, tornado that struck Charles City.
Press file photo by Bob Steenson

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Basking in the success of the new kiosk that marked the 50th anniversary of the Charles City tornado, the Floyd County Historical Society is planning a similar electronic display for the county museum’s tractor exhibit.

The society is requesting $5,000 from Floyd County to be used to help create a kiosk for the Hart Parr/Oliver/White Farm Tractor manufacturing part of the Floyd County Historical Museum.

Historical Society board member and officer Dean Tjaden presented the society’s annual report and budget request to the county Board of Supervisors at a workshop meeting Monday morning.

Tjaden said the tornado anniversary kiosk “was a hit.” There were more than 200 people at the museum on May 15, 2018, for the 50th anniversary of the tornado program and the opening of the kiosk, and “it’s generated a tremendous amount of interest.”

The Board of Supervisors gave the Historical Society $5,000 toward the tornado kiosk, which was created by Adam Nielson, a graduate student at the University of Northern Iowa.

“For next year, we would like to have $5,000 again,” Tjaden said. “What this is for is to keep up with the times.”

He said that Ryan Rahmiller, a Charles City social studies teacher, and his students are looking at interviewing past employees of the Oliver White Farm Plant and helping with the kiosk.

“We would invite anybody” who is a former employee to tell his or her story, Tjaden said.

“I have a presentation that I put together, basically traveling all over the Midwest, giving it to various collector clubs, that gives a virtual plant tour, and this would be part of that or they could modify it to use it,” Tjaden said.

Supervisor Linda Tjaden, who is Dean Tjaden’s wife, said she thinks the tractor kiosk could be even more popular than the tornado anniversary display.

Interest in the tornado anniversary is generated mostly by local people and people from the area who lived through it, she said, while the museum’s tractor display draws interest from all over the country and all over the world.

Dean Tjaden said the number of people who are interested in the Hart Parr/Oliver/White tractors “is amazing.”

The Hart Parr Oliver Tractor Collectors Club has more than 8,000 members, and its Facebook page has 14,000 to 15,000 followers, “and it comes back to Charles City all the time,” he said.

“These people come from all over the world,” Dean Tjaden said. “We had visitors last year from Germany, Australia, Canada, England, France, Norway, Mexico, Italy.

“Our requests, it’s amazing,” he said. “We average over 12 requests a day via email or phone or handwritten letters for technical information on Oliver Hart Parr. We’re like a technical resource for them. We have all that technical information, all the blueprints.”

“It’s a big deal,” he said. “Just this last weekend another portion of it, the Minneapolis-Moline collectors, were here. They had their board meeting here.”

Minneapolis Moline was under the White Motor wing, Tjaden explained. “They were all owned by the same corporate parent company. The Minneapolis Moline people, they say this is the only home they have.”

Dean Tjaden said the Floyd County Museum averages more than 5,000 visitors a year, and tries to break even every year with its budget.

“We don’t need it to be profitable, but I want it to be not losing money — not us dipping into our savings to keep operations,” said Tjaden, who is chairman of the Historical Society’s finance committee.

He said for three years the Historical Society has been able to break even, but this last year’s revenue was about $3,000 less than expenses.

“I wanted to be four years of breaking even, but $3,000 on a $135,000 budget is pretty close,” he said.

“We’re doing things to try to attract more membership, attract more traffic, and we’re also doing things in the physical end of the building to make it more efficient so our costs can go down,” Tjaden said. A grant will redo the heating in one wing of the building that was built in 1936.

“The one variable we have is utilities,” he said. “Let’s try and carve them down as tight as we can.”

Supervisor Roy Schwickerath said he appreciates that the Historical Society is coming to the county asking for money for special projects, rather than for general annual operating funds.

The supervisors have been meeting with county departments and outside groups for several weeks now as they work on the county budget for fiscal year 2019-20 which will begin July 1.

No decisions have been made on budget requests or department funding levels.

Also at the workshop meeting Monday, the supervisors:

  • Heard a request from Floyd County Treasurer Frank Rottinghaus to terminate an agreement with the city of Charles City to use city streets for the county to conduct tests for commercial driver’s licenses.

Rottinghaus said his office stopped giving the tests as of last July 1 because there was no longer sufficient demand for them.

  • Again discussed finding members for a couple of boards and commissions to which the supervisors appoint members. Because of gender balance rules, several of the boards have openings for female members, and Supervisor Tjaden also said she wants to try to find representatives from all areas of the county, not just the Charles City area.

Anyone interested in applying to be appointed to any of the various boards and commissions can contact a county supervisor.

  • Continued county department budget reviews.

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