The Baldwin
brothers still had other irons in the fire, and they moved into real estate,
buying land in the Nebraska panhandle for three “Test Farms.” They would use
the farms to develop and modify harvesting equipment on a variety of crops.
All three brothers were involved in this original
“land breaking operation,” but Ernest
moved westward to manage the Sioux County farm, while George tended Whitney. Curtis – retaining his primary residence in
Kansas – would oversee a smaller test farm in Kimball county to the south.
- DAWES COUNTY -
The Baldwin test farms were also used for crop
experimentation, ranging from oats and wheat to beans and barley – even peanuts
for a time. George Baldwin was not a fan
of crops requiring hand labor, so he avoided growing sugar beets, which had
gained a toe-hold in the region. Their
real focus, however, was testing and improving harvesting equipment.
Among the early “hired hands” for the
Baldwins was 16-year-old Harold Thompson, who had just graduated from Chadron
High School in the spring of 1928 and went to work on the Whitney farm.
“The
Baldwin project was a new departure in farming and created quite a stir in the
area,” Thompson recalled many years later.
“We were operating 24 hours a day and seven days a week. During the spring and summer of 1928, we
plowed up around three thousand acres of gumbo prairie land and prepared it for
the planting of wheat in the fall of 1928.”
During the harvest of 1929, thirty men
and 12 combines were used to harvest nearly 40,000 bushels of wheat from a
2,400-acre field, believed to be one of the largest wheat fields in western
Nebraska. Some of the combines were
still going through an “experimental
stage.”
The Associated Press, in reporting the 15
bushels-to-the-acre yield, wrote, “the
wheat is being trucked to Whitney and shipped to market in an average of four (rail)carload
lots each day.”
“As
fast as harvesting is completed, two plowing outfits with tractors and disc
plows are preparing the ground for another crop.”
Since 1925, the Whitney Irrigation
District had operated a water diversion tunnel from White River to a dam at
Whitney Lake. The west outlet of the dam
served Baldwin land; alas, it was usually the first outlet to go dry when the
reservoir was low. One of George
Baldwin’s projects was to build a small dam.
Using power from a tractor, he configured a system to pump runoff water
from Whitney Lake to a new dam on Baldwin land. This was particularly helpful later in the
season when water became scarce
 |
| Baldwin's Dawes County "bunkhouse" (Photo courtesy of Ruth Ann Connell) |
The Baldwin brothers’ father, Charles,
turned 65 in 1930 and had been living alone back in Reno County Kansas. His wife, Ella, had died seven years
earlier, and all three of his sons were busy with their careers and
families. Whatever his circumstances, the
elder Baldwin moved to Whitney and appeared in the 1930 census living on the
Baldwin farm north of town.
George Baldwin was already spending much
of his time in Nebraska, but it was 1933
before his family arrived there from Missouri.
In late 1935, the Baldwin brothers
father, Charles, died in Chadron. His
remains were returned to Nickerson, Kansas for burial.
Despite difficult economic conditions,
while most other area farmers were paying hired hands a dollar-and-a-half per
day, George Baldwin paid workers two or two and one-half dollars a day.
Each Saturday night, workers would find
their paychecks lying on their dinner plates. The Baldwin brothers paid their
help well and were highly regarded as employers.
Robert Connell and Ralph Grant were among
the Whitney boys who went to work on the Baldwin farm. Grant began in 1936 and Connell in 1938.
In a college paper about the Baldwin
farm, Bob Connell’s wife Ruth Ann – some years later – wrote about the
equipment.
“Besides
their own machines, the Baldwins bought Holt, International, and John Deere
combines. They were probably the first
in the area to use diesel tractors for regular farming.
The 1938 harvest on the Baldwin place
provided another bumper crop. Trucks
hauled the wheat to the Whitney railroad depot, filling 28 rail cars for
shipment to Minneapolis.
George calculated that, since area grain
elevators were not paying a premium for protein content, he could pay for
freighting it to Minneapolis, collect that premium, and still turn a profit.
By the fall of 1940, George Baldwin and
his wife Mary separated, and he departed for California. However, it was not the end of his agricultural
pursuits – or collaboration with his brothers.
Nor was it the end of the Baldwin test farm.
Interestingly, Mary Baldwin took over
management of the Whitney farm for many months in the early 1940’s.
- SIOUX COUNTY -
In January 1929, Curtis Baldwin and
partners Charles Thompson and Will Herman bought 2,400 acres in Sioux County, tucked away in the far northwest corner of Nebraska. Wyoming abuts the western border of the county, and South Dakota on the north. They
paid $25,200 to John and Frances Sampy for the nearly four sections of land,
located west of Hemingford, Nebraska.
Ernest Baldwin took charge of the new operation. While his role in the
collaboration between the brothers is less documented than those of Curtis and
George, it is clear that he participated.
His oversight of the Sioux County farm for nearly a decade reflected
his commitment to their joint effort.
His niece, Dorothy Lyons wrote about Ernest's business relationship with his brothers, “I never knew Ernest’s capacity. I just liked him.”
His niece, Dorothy Lyons wrote about Ernest's business relationship with his brothers, “I never knew Ernest’s capacity. I just liked him.”
Unlike his older brothers, Ernest tended to
stay in one place longer. Growing
up in the Nickerson area, he remained in that vicinity until his 1924 marriage in Wichita to
Ada Miller.
Shortly thereafter they moved to Independence, Missouri, when the Baldwin
Gleaner combine began production.
Both of their sons, Marvin and Billy, were born in Missouri.
 |
| Built in about 1930, the Ernest Baldwin farm home still stands about 20 miles west of Hemingford, Nebraska |
Arline Holmgren Schaefer’s parents farmed
just north of the Baldwins, and she remembers when the Baldwins arrived.
“They
really built up that place. They
had all new buildings, and a wonderful big granary. And a building for the hired help.”
Mrs. Schaefer recalled that a few years
later – in the mid-1930s – Ernest Baldwin worked in the Sioux County
courthouse in Harrison, perhaps involved with a forerunner to the Farm Service Agency
of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
It
was probably an office of the Grain Stabilization Corporation, which had been
formed in 1931. This was during the “dry” years, when less
manpower was needed on the farm, and a stable income from the courthouse job was a plus
“I
was in school in Harrison, and remember riding home with him sometimes, because
he came right by our house on his way home,” Mrs. Schaefer recalled.
She also remembered as a child visiting the Baldwin
family and hearing her first radio broadcast. The Baldwins had one of the first wireless
sets in the area.
Mrs. Baldwin was a seamstress “and she made wonderful dresses for my sister and me
when we started high school. They
were good neighbors.”
The '30s were the Depression years – and 1934 in the United States saw the lowest production of wheat in some 30 years. A 1935 weevil infestation in Sioux County hampered alfalfa sales, and there was a continuing struggle for more water. Sioux County did not enjoy a developed irrigation system like Dawes County.
The Baldwins likely pondered these and other issues. Whatever the motivation, in the summer of 1938 Baldwins sold
their Sioux County property.
Ernest and his family returned to Kansas, this time to Ottawa,
where they would spend the rest of their lives.
- KIMBALL
COUNTY -
Very little
is known about the 240 acre farm the three Baldwin brothers bought west of Kimball, Nebraska at the
end of August 1928. County records
indicate the land – with mineral rights – was purchased for $7,400. While it was purported to be the site of yet another Baldwin test farm, there's no evidence indicating that any of the Baldwins ever lived there, or that there was ever any real "testing" done.
The land was likely leased to a tenant. Interestingly, the Baldwins held this land longer than either the Dawes County or Sioux County properties. They sold the Kimball County land to C. Lee and Dorothy Bradt in September of 1949 for $4,800, about two-thirds of what they had paid for it 21 years earlier.
The land was likely leased to a tenant. Interestingly, the Baldwins held this land longer than either the Dawes County or Sioux County properties. They sold the Kimball County land to C. Lee and Dorothy Bradt in September of 1949 for $4,800, about two-thirds of what they had paid for it 21 years earlier.
