Digging for Our Roots, Part 2: Rock Island and Elgin, Illinois

25 August 2013

Our last stop in Iowa was at the I80 Truck Stop and Truck Museum. I thought this would be kind of a funky touristy trap, but the museum turned out to be pretty interesting. The building is relatively new and is filled with a large variety of restored trucks that have been used for transportation of people and goods. Some were quite old, including an all-electric milk truck that was used in Chicago and could go 50 miles on a single charge. I recognized some of the more recent (1950 vintage) trucks; I suppose that might say something about my own personal qualifications for being put into a museum.

We didn’t go through the truck stop; it is the largest truck stop in the world. Probably save that for the next time we go through Iowa. They have an annual Trucker’s reunion with about 30,000 people showing up for the festivities in July. As truck stops go, it seemed to be a bit higher quality.

We spent a day in the Rock Island/Moline area with the express purpose of taking a tour of the John Deere Harvester Works where the ginormous combines are built. We started out at the John Deere Pavilion in downtown Moline where there are several pieces of John Deere equipment (antique and new) to view and some to climb into. There was even a walking tree cutter which looked like a huge bug with six articulated legs. They also had three simulators, one was a scooper where you could practice picking up scoops of dirt and putting them into a dump truck. The simulator kept track of how much money you were making from the dirt scoops and subtracted any damage you made to the dump truck. Let’s just say that Russ is a better engineer than a construction worker. Another simulator had you using a John Deere tractor to plant your crops. If you want straight rows, don’t ask Russ! But he had fun anyway! And he got to sit in a real ginormous combine! There was lots of great information on the history of the company, the technical innovations they had implemented over the years and the impact the company has had on the world of farming and construction. We learned that over 50 percent of the world’s crops are harvested using John Deere equipment! That is mind boggling!

The two hour tour through the Harvester Works was fascinating. We sat on trams which carried 15 people and were pulled by a small tractor (John Deere, of course) through the factory area. The tour guides and tractor drivers were retired John Deere personnel. Our tour guide retired after 31 years in 1987 and has 24 years as a tour guide. There seems to be a lot of loyalty and pride with the employees.

The facility is over 200 acres with 71 of those acres under roof. We saw laser punches, robot welders, and nine miles of overhead track which is used to move subassemblies from station to station. We saw the whole process from punching out individual pieces to the final assembly of the combine. It was fascinating. Each combine costs around $500,000 and if you buy one, you can choose to come to the factory, watch the final assembly and then be the first to start your combine with your own gold key.

I thought the paint shop was particularly interesting. It is all automated with 11 stations that the subassemblies pass through; from washing to remove any residue that might prevent the paint from adhering, to the paint baths which used electricity to bond the paint to the metal to a thickness of 1 millimeter. The tour guide said that the combines typically are used for 17 years with 5 different owners and the paint does not fade or chip during that time. Why can’t the car manufacturers do that?

The next day we toured the original blacksmith shop site and home of John Deere. He was a blacksmith who came to Illinois in the 1830s to find a better life for his family. He invented a new plow which could cut through the prairie dirt without the goopy stuff caking up on the plow and impeding progress. His highly polished self-scouring steel blade opened the prairie to farming.

When John Deere moved his company to Moline, about 15 miles away, in order to have better access to transportation of goods and products, he basically abandoned his blacksmith shop and home. A granddaughter bought the property and started restoration in the early 1900s. By then, no one knew where the blacksmith shop had sat. Some archeology students at the University of Illinois excavated the site and found the foundations and locations of key parts of the shop, including the furnace and anvil. A building sits over the excavation site and a really interesting video is shown on the history.

A replica of the blacksmith shop is also on the property with a real blacksmith. He had a great personality and did a tremendous job of explaining the parts of the shop and demonstrating the craft by making a leaf out of a piece of steel. We also toured the home and gardens. I am very impressed with the 176 year old John Deere Company - for the quality of the products they build, the loyalty of their employees and the public interface they provide. We thoroughly enjoyed our two days in John Deere land.

On our way into Chicago, we stayed at a campground near the John Deere historic site. That was an adventure – had to drive down 2 miles of dirt road because the navigation system took us there on a roundabout path and then when we got there, we found out that the campground is, for the most part, a monthly or permanent camp for the local folks. Generally, the quality of that kind of campground isn’t terrific. But they did have a big field for the overnighters and we had our pick since we were the only ones. It wasn’t ten minutes after we were settled in when we heard a train coming. It sounded like it was going to go right through our trailer. Turns out the track were about 150 feet away. So we were treated to long freight trains every hour or so all the way through the night. Fortunately, I had earplugs and Russ just took his hearing aids out. We laughed over that adventure.

The next two nights were at a forest preserve about 50 miles from Chicago. This is the closest to Chicago that you can find a campground. We just did our chores while at this campground and got the trailer ready to be parked in a Chicago hotel parking lot. So now we are in the Chicago Marriott O’Hare hotel for the next four nights. Looking forward to seeing Chris!

I-80 Truck Stop near the Quad City area bordering Iowa and Illinois.

One of several antique trucks on display.

I have vivid memories of seeing one of these staring at me about this close in my rear-end mirror on the New Jersey turnpike. Scared the heck out of me.

I remember seeing these kind of trucks on freeways when I was younger.

That mail is going to be delivered come rain, hail or snow.

This is an all-electric milk delivery truck. It could drive 50 miles a day which is better than some of the electric vehicles today.

We have seen these wind farm turbine blades traveling down the road and have been impressed with their size. Our rig is about 48 feet from tip to tip, so this blade must be way over 100 feet.