Kempner POWER WAGON Museum

[Paul Cook]

Here's a picture of the Museum's new display building. It's 50' x 60' with a power operated 12' x 12' front door and a 12' wide by 10' rear door, also power operated.



There's room to park 15 trucks by I will probably only have 12 on display since I also have some antique tools and old gas station items I want to show off. I am very pleased to have purchased a late '40's Coca-Cola cooler just like the one in the neighborhood filling station where I hung out in the '50's.

Hopefully, I'll have the walls finished and my display shelves installed within a month so I can start moving in the trucks.

Of course, we're starting to have highs in the upper nineties so I will take my time getting things moved. Feel free to stop by a have a cold soda. I might even let you help me move some stuff.

[Gordon Maney]

That is a beautiful building.

Is that a Kubota?

[Paul Cook]

Building and the Kubota

Gordon,

We are building a house in a second, smaller, steel building of identical construction. We'll - in effect - be living in a fully insulated packing crate sitting inside a fully insulated steel warehouse. There are more pictures at this link.

http://www.dashlink.com/~txpwrwgn/Hootch.htm

The living area of the house is 1500 sq ft with the remaining space in the 2250 sq ft building being a 750 sq ft garage.

I don't know what a 1500 sq ft house with attached garage goes for in Norway, but my house and my 3000 sq ft Museum display building will be less than $135,000 complete. Around here, that would barely buy a 1500 sq ft house of conventional construction. It was built on my land. And that price includes an aerobic septic system.

The tractor is my second Kubota. I started with a Ford 9N - the predecessor to the much-improved 8N. I replaced the Ford with a 23 hp, two-wheel drive Kubota in 1988. I kept it ten years and then traded for a 24 hp, four-wheel drive Kubota in 1998. Both Kubotas had front buckets. The first one sat out in the weather the whole ten years. I got 50% of its purchase price on trade in. The best money I ever spent was on the Kubotas.

[Gordon Maney]

Kubota Tractors

That sounds pretty neat. I agonize over whether to ask what happened to your other house.... it is on the same property? Are you renting it out to raise money to buy truck parts?

On the matter of Kubota, I am with you. In 1983 I bought an L245DT, a three cylinder, 24 HP diesel, four wheel drive, with Kubota quick detach loader. An absolutely incredible machine. My only real complaints are that I wish it had a live PTO, and high range reverse is sooooo fast I don't know what they were thinking. I moved snow with it until 1996, and have mowed with it all of these years, and pull wagons. Beautiful stuff, Kubota, and high quality, as I am sure you have learned.

In 1996 I wanted to buy a new, larger tractor to supplement the Kubota (I would not sell this Kubota, I will own it until I die). I figured I would buy a bigger Kubota, but looked at them and they did not have a model I liked in the size I wanted. So, I bought a John Deere 5500, a 73 HP turbo diesel in four wheel drive, and got a quick detach loader again that lifts 2,400 pounds and has a 7' wide material bucket. What a marvelous yard crane, and I use a 7' mower behind it.

These city folks don't know what they are missing....

[Bruce]

Great Idea Paul

Three years ago, we restored our barn with some help from a roofer. After it was all said and done, it was decided that a new barn would have been much less expensive!
It's a 100 year old New England Bank Barn. I'll look around for some pictures. I like the idea of building living quarters in the building, what are you going to do with the rest of the space? BTW, I have a 1949 8N, that has always done a good job.