A museum for the love of old tractors

Slideshow: The South Dakota Tractor Museum, just off I-90 at Kimball, displays and interprets scores of historic and rare tractors.

August 8, 2023

Farmers love tractors. All farmers, young and young at heart, seem to love tractors ranging from the latest and greatest looking back to the very earliest tractors ever used in the field. That’s why farmers love the South Dakota Tractor Museum, just off Interstate 90 at Kimball, S.D.

Farmers and tractors go hand in hand. Tractor aficionados — both farmers and non-farmers — can view a range of historical tractors once used in the field at the South Dakota Tractor Museum.

For 23 years, the museum has drawn in tractor enthusiasts from far and wide. According to one museum supporter, Maynard Konechne of Kimball, before the pandemic, the museum was visited by guests from around 20 different countries each year.

“This always amazed me,” Konechne says. “Since COVID, it has been around five or six other countries, but guests from nearly all 50 states come every year.”

The museum is just off Interstate 90 at Exit 284. The complex at the museum consists of 11 structures housing not only tractors, but also other farm machinery, a blacksmith shop, buggies and antique cars, tools, household items and a lineup of unrestored combines, tractors and other machinery outside, plus a gift shop and country schoolhouse.

“To build that first building, we received a grant, plus businesses donated $500 each for a one-time donation to get things going,” Konechne says. “We don’t own any of the tractors on display. There was a group of farmers and other area residents, mostly from Kimball, White Lake and other area towns, who loaned their tractors to the museum.”

The rest of the complex structures were built over time, mainly through donations from supporters and enthusiasts, and free-will offerings from visitors, because there is no admission fee.

Most of the tractors have been running in the last two or three years, Konechne says, so they are in good running shape for visitors to view. Among the collection is a rare Thieman tractor. But for Konechne, one of his favorites at the museum is the wooden icebox in the household collection.

The museum is staffed by 26 volunteers, from Kimball, Pukwana and surrounding communities, who each take a four-hour shift each week during operating hours from Memorial Day weekend to late September. They host school tours and bus groups, and often provide a guided tour of the tractors and the museum complex.

You can learn more about the museum by visiting its Facebook page.