CAMARILLO : Tractor Enthusiasts Want Farm Museum

When tractor collectors get together, they talk engines.

When alone, they roll out across the fields and plow through the topsoil on machines up to 70 years old. Out there, they lose themselves in nostalgia.

The fun of collecting is in the riding.

About 50 tractor collectors live in Ventura County, and not only do they store up tractors, they also accumulate decades-old engines and antique farm implements. Though they may look like junk collectors, they see themselves as preservers of farm history.

The Oxnard Plains have an agricultural history that’s largely ignored these days, complained Eugene R. Trumble, who owns 30 tractors and 20 engines, most of them built between 1920 and 1950. He and other tractor enthusiasts around the county hope to build a farming museum and local collectors’ club.

They expect to see a hearty interest in the project. According to Trumble, a similar antique farm equipment club in Vista, Calif., has 1,500 members and easily draws about 5,000 people a day to a semiannual public show.

There, in addition to a long, proud tractor parade, visitors see and hear 700-pound farm engines running saws and threshers. Also, they witness demonstrations of blacksmithing, weaving, quilting and tatting, which is a kind of lace making. And they gather around country kitchens for meals prepared on wood stoves.

That’s the kind of show Trumble wants to see here in Ventura, but first must come the museum. It’s already in the planning stages as part of a 300-acre county park slated for 1992 development. The Ventura County Farm Implement Museum has raised $300,000 toward a building fund, most of it from the farmers of the county, according to museum committee chairman Bob Pheiler.

The park, said Ventura County manager of planning and development Ron Blakemore, will be just north of Camarillo State Hospital and will include an operating steam train on a half-mile track, a large equestrian center, campgrounds and festival areas.

Trumble plans to donate the bulk of his collection to the farm museum. He’ll keep a couple of tractors for the occasional after-work ride.