Piatt County Museum

05/30/2026

Tools that were essential for every pioneer family on the prairie.

05/29/2026

Early horse drawn seed planters.

05/28/2026

Corn is the most commonly used grain for this country’s cash crop. In England corn is referred to as wheat, in Scotland and Ireland it means oats and in the U.S., Canada and Australia, corn is the common name for maize which originated in Mexico more than 3,000 years ago.
The Native Americans taught the white man to plant four kernels of corn in a small mound, and then bury fish in each hill to provide fertilizer and moisture to the seeds.
The Piatt Count museum has samples of early planters that were hand made by man for planting various crops.

05/28/2026

05/27/2026

For growing crops on the prairie the tools were rugged and handmade. The most popular was a portable type of handheld crank seeder featuring an adjustable cloth seed bag, hand-cranked and cast iron gears that turned a disk that threw out the seeds onto the soil.

05/25/2026

05/21/2026

Prairie farmers used pairs of oxen to pull heavy loads. The yoke rests on top of the animals neck, secured with bent wood. The farmer usually made his own yoke from large beams of wood. He would carve two curved neck pieces into the beam usually with hickory bows threaded through the yoke.
Blacksmiths would make the hitching parts and a yoke ring attached to the bottom of the yoke. These neck yokes made it possible for the oxen to pull carts, logs, and plows for the unbroken

05/20/2026

Corn shellers were hand-cranked cast iron mechanism used to strip dried corn kernels from the cob.
The dry corn was fed into a hopper where spiked wheels or toothed paddles stripped the kernels away from the cob. These made it easier to prepare the kernels for livestock feed, milling cornmeal or use as seed corn.
The cobs were used for slow- burning stove fuel, smoking meats, pig bedding or mulch.
The Piatt County museum has these different types of shellers in its collection.

05/19/2026

Prairie tools were handcrafted and built for sod busting and surviving homestead life. Walking plows, scythes and axes were some of the earliest tools used by the Piatt farmer.
Axes were for making paths through the prairie, cutting lumber, building log cabins, cutting wood for cooking and for weapons.
Farmers used scythes attached to wooden frames to cut paths and cut grains like wheat and oats.
The museum has several examples of these tools because of the generosity of its citizens these last 60 years.

05/18/2026

An example of the single wheel cultivator plow is in the museum collection. They were used to remove weeds from between rows of crops and for aerating.