Saving ‘ageless iron’ from rusty oblivion
Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Graham Hadley
If you want to see a child’s eyes light up, put them on a tractor. Better yet, take them by Serrell Fleming’s house at 8701 Moody Parkway, between Odenville and Moody, where they will have almost three dozen tractors to climb on. They can turn the steering wheels, push the buttons and play with the knobs and gear shifts without fear of reprimand. In fact, the tractors’ owner encourages such behavior.
“I take the batteries out of most of them so kids can push all the buttons without starting up the tractors,” Fleming said.
Old tractors are, as one writer put it, “the antique cars of the farm,” which makes Fleming an antique dealer extraordinaire. He has been buying and restoring old and rare ones for 45 years, simply because he likes them.
For the past 25, he has lined them up in front of his house during major holidays and invited any with an interest to drop by.
His current count is 35 standard-size tractors in his display, plus a few lawn tractors and some children’s pedal models. He puts them in his front yard for at least a week around Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day. Many are decorated with American flags. During the Christmas holidays, he displays them for more than a month beginning in early December and extending well past New Year’s Day, decorated with lights.
He replaces the batteries and puts as many as he can find drivers for in the Odenville Christmas Parade. “All of them will run,” he said proudly. During the parade, he also pulls a flatbed trailer with child-mounted pedal tractors behind his pickup truck.
Cases, John Deeres, Minneapolis Molines, Olivers, Allis Chalmers models, Fords, Farmalls and Massey Harrises cover Fleming’s yard like wildflowers, their ageless iron shining under new coats of red, blue, orange and yellow paint. There’s even a pink one, a Power King that Fleming painted to show support for the American Cancer Society, even though the color is usually associated with breast cancer awareness. “I saw one done that way at an International show at the Coliseum in Montgomery,” he said. After his wife’s death from COPD two years ago, he dedicated it to her memory. “Her favorite actually was the Oliver 440, but she didn’t want it painted because it’s more valuable like it is,” Fleming said.
Passion ignited
Fleming’s tractor passion started with buying used ones and restoring them for his own use.
Later, he began selling them, then decided to become a collector.
He often finds out about them at tractor auctions like the one on RFD-TV on Tuesdays and has been all over Alabama and parts of Tennessee retrieving them. He finds most of them within a 50-mile radius of where he lives. “I don’t find them, they find me,” he said.
When he buys an old tractor, it’s usually in pretty rough condition. “Most are basket cases,” he said. “They have been welded on and patched up and rusted so bad. The (Ford 2000) Hi Crop looked like it had been in a junk yard. I have to disassemble them, strip them (of any remaining paint) and replace parts.”
He has no trouble finding parts, sometimes through salvage yards, sometimes through Steiner Tractor Parts, a Michigan-based company that makes reproductions. A retired sheet metal worker (Hayes Aircraft), he, too, knows how to make parts when he can’t find what he needs. “When it’s using oil and smoking, I have to buy a part,” he said.
Every nut and bolt, manifold and carburetor is color-coded like the tractors: blue for Ford, orange for Allis Chalmers, green for John Deere, red for International. When the U.S. had a more agrarian-based economy, farmers bought whatever brand their local dealer had, and dealers usually specialized in one brand or another.
Fleming’s grandson, Chad Brantley, helped him research information on each of his tractors online, printed that information, encased it in plastic sleeves and attached it to the respective tractors for visitors to read. “It keeps me from having to answer so many questions,” he said. But he doesn’t mind answering a few and loves to talk about his favorites.
Tractors 101
The Oliver HG 68, for example, is a metal tractor that was used in apple orchards in Tennessee because it wasn’t easy to turn over. The Ford 2000 Hi Crop is a favorite because it’s so rare and unique. “I only know of two others, one in Leesburg,” he said. “I looked a long time for this one.” He bought it in 2018 and he’s only its second owner.
“My grandfather, Cecil Smith, bought this tractor for me to drive when I was 15,” said Mike Smith, in the printed information attached to the tractor. “It has remained in our family solely from 1964 to 2018.”
Another favorite and his rarest specimen is the Oliver 440, one of only 600 produced. He also has a rare Minneapolis Moline, one of only 137 built. “Honestly, my favorite is the one I’m working on at the time,” he said.
Then there’s the John Deere 40 All Fuel, so named because it has both a gas and a diesel tank. The one-gallon gas tank got the engine hot, then you flipped a switch to use the 10-gallon diesel. “It’s not loud, it’s a beautiful sound,” he said as he cranks up the engine and listens to it purr. “It was practical. It didn’t have a water pump because they wanted it to run hot to burn the diesel.”
Parade of visitors
Fleming is with his display from daylight to dark, watching the happy folks examining the tractors. They come from all over Alabama and nearby states, having seen the Tractor Man on Fred Hunter’s Absolutely Alabama (WBRC-Fox 6 TV) or read about him on his daughter’s Facebook page (Janice Fleming Brantley).
Others just notice his display as they drive by on Moody Parkway. This past July 4th, he even had a couple from North Dakota who were in town visiting relatives and read about the tractors in a local newspaper. He doesn’t have any way of keeping a count of visitors, because he doesn’t sell tickets, but for this year’s July 4th, he gave away all 500 of the tractor-listing sheets he had printed. He gives away bottled water during the warmer months, too.
“I plowed my garden with this one,” he told a visitor who was admiring an Allis Chalmers G. The G stands for Gadsden, where it was made in 1944. Whitt Davis, age 21 months, climbed all over the G while his mom, Jessica Davis, and granddad, Ron Chamblee, watched. “He loves tractors,” said Ron, a Springville resident. “We have to take a tractor or lawn mower ride just about every day.” Ron restores tractors, too, but not to the extent of Fleming.
Abel Hilliard of Woodville, 15, visited July 3 with his dad and brother. “Dadread about it online,” Abel said. “I think it’s pretty cool. Dad has an old Farmall that he’s working on, too.”
Fleming loves watching the kids’ faces as they play on the tractors and enjoys hearing their parents’ comments, too. “Parents thank me for putting these out for them and the kids,” he said. “They say they appreciate what we’re doing here. One guy left a message on my answering machine saying he saw the tractors but couldn’t get in my driveway.”
Fleming also said the display, which is stored in a couple of sheds behind his house between holidays, is really a family thing. His daughter lives next door, helps with traffic and posts notices about the display on her Facebook page. His son-in-law helps drive the tractors out and back into the sheds, and on off days, he walks the rows of tractors, helping Fleming answer questions.A couple of neighbors keep him company under his sun tent. “There’s no way I could do all this without the help of my family,” he said.
He pauses, gazes out at the rows of tractors and the smiling faces of the visitors, and a broad grin lights up his face. “I’m so glad the young people are bringing the kids,” he said. “Tractor collectors are getting older, and we’re losing the heritage of these.”
The Tractor Man is doing all he can to maintain that heritage.
