It was a brisk 20 degree day and taking pictures in an unheated barn was not a fun job but talking to Rex Horton, who lives in Brockville, made it pleasant as he warmed up to the task of filling me in on his hobby – collecting tractors.
“I’ve always been around tractors. I was a machine builder for GE in Brockport and I used quite a few tractors on my 80 acre farm, here in Brockville,” Rex said. I carried on with collecting them after GE closed, and provided hay and straw for the Seneca Zoo and horse farms and feeding my beef cattle. A fire in my barn destroyed my tractors and tools, so I got out of farming and just collected tractors, traveling to places as far away as Canada, Ohio and Massachusetts with my truck and trailer since the early 1980s. My wife passed away about five years ago and I stopped collecting tractors since I had to do my chores and “women’s work” also. I finally decided to auction them off and let other people enjoy them. That’ll leave me time to spend on machine work and woodworking.”
Rex has collected 32 tractors that are being auctioned off by Aumann Auction Inc., Nokomis, Illinois. The auction is only on the internet and ends March 29.
Photographs and text by Walter Horylev
