Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 4
“Lightning Hay Press” manufactured by Kansas City Hay Press Company, c. 1910.
(Smithsonian Institution)
An undated catalogue for the Collins Plow Company from around 1918
includes a testimonial for the Model 112 Eli Baling Press, which could be
run on steam, gasoline, or horse power. However, by far the best evidence
placing the equipment of a particular company in Nebraska during the
period in which the earliest straw-bale homes were built is a photograph
taken by Solomon Butcher in 1904 in Dawson County.This photo, show-
ing a horse-powered baler, two horses, a stack of baled hay, and a baling
crew, closely matches illustrations in the Kansas City Lightning Hay Press
catalog from around the turn of the century. Not only is the characteristic
C shape of the pitman end of the press obvious in both photos; in addition,
the shape of the loading chute, the horse lead, the baling shaft, the config-
uration of the tension springs, and even the position of the horses and the
automatic whip mechanism are identical. It is irrefutable that the Lightning
model of the two-horse-powered Kansas City Hay Press was in use in
Nebraska around the turn of the century and perhaps earlier. (The Kansas
City Hay Press Company, founded in 1885, was one of the first baler man-
ufacturers to be established west of the Mississippi. A geographically closer
manufacturer would be a factor in more economical shipping costs for
cash-poor farmers. Hay press manufacturers were well aware of the diver-
sity of economic factors in their clientele and continued to manufacture a
broad array of hay presses ranging from one- and two-horse-powered
presses to steam and gasoline belt-powered presses from the 1880s through
World War II to cater to everyone from the small farmer with a few acres
