Adding a photo from earlier this year; just as I was reminded of this trip as I was cleaning up the tumblr a bit from other older posts that just didn’t fit well anymore or where dated.
This is the old Froelich, IA depot - preserved by a small group with a old wooden boxcar and flat car once used to ship the towns greatest commodity... Tractors.
That’s right, Tractors. A bit of agricultural history I was unaware of until the fateful evening returning from SD to see this depot from the highway and while not stopping then, which would have had so much better mood, I returned just to investigate and find the birthplace of what we today know as a John Deere tractor. Yet once known as the Waterloo Gasoline Tractor Engine Company; the founder ( John Froelich) would use this company he founded in his family named village to invent and distribute the first Gasoline powdered tractor to move under it’s own power forward and backward in 1892. The company created in 1013 the “ Waterloo Boy” tractor that would eventually become a forerunner to the John Deere Tractor Company.
Great history is in FACT hidden at times in the most unassuming spots. Froelich is also home to a general store for touring - with the depot and a old blacksmith shop that helped develop the Waterloo Boy engines.
This image is currently not on the Society6 or Shutterstock sites, but if you would be interested in images of it on products, let me know in the comments and I will add it to the stores! :D
