116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Brown Farm Central City farmstead offers antique machinery, glimpses of the past
The Brown Farm in Central City is like a pioneer stew. There's no recipe. To truly appreciate it is to understand that what you put in the pot is what you're able to gather, grow and hunt down on your own.
Similarly, visitors to the farm shouldn't expect to see a well-preserved farmhouse full of museum-style displays explaining how pioneers and subsequent generations lived and farmed the land. The best way to experience Brown Farm is to go out there and put some effort into making history come alive.
There are two ways to do this: Visit the farm during Brown Farm Pioneer Days, an annual event celebrating agricultural heritage that takes place the last weekend of July, or just pick up the phone and call. One of the volunteers with the Central City Historical Society will be glad to arrange a visit.
The Farm
The farmstead encompasses 84 acres east of Central City, where Jordans Grove Road intersects with Sawyer Road.
Folks at the historical society say the main part of the original farmhouse was built in the 1870s. Despite repairing a storm-damaged roof a few years ago, the house is not in tour shape and probably isn't worth long-term restoration due to its loose rock foundation that continues to give way.
Lloyd Brown died in 1988, leaving the property to the Central City Historical Society. Its volunteers operate the farmstead as a kind of living museum. They host farm tours, tractor shows and other events. They rent the land to Jim Greif, 63, who manages the farming operations.
Greif describes Brown as a Mr. Haney kind of character, referring to the opportunistic farmer-turned-junk seller on the '60s sitcom 'Green Acres.”
Brown left behind a menagerie of antiques, curiosities and ag equipment debris that occupies a massive storage shed on the property. It's the kind of assemblage the antique collectors on 'American Pickers” probably dream about.
Nothing is for sale, but visitors are welcome to peruse the collection and participate in the beloved farming tradition of looking at old contraptions and machine parts and explaining what they are or at least bluffing your best guess.
Greif, as a high school student, worked with Brown on old tractors and has been putting those classic machines to work on the land ever since.
He fields a lot of calls from antique tractor owners who want to come out with their equipment, roll up their sleeves and step back in time.
People have come from as far away as Australia to check out the farm and work the land using old machinery.
Pioneer Days
You'll see an impressive range of coal-, kerosene- and gas-powered tractors at Pioneer Days.
The event last July drew about 2,000 visitors from five states and 23 Iowa counties. The fields stayed busy hosting demonstrations of how farmers used to plow, seed, thresh and more.
This year's event featured a John Deere-themed display with tractors and implements from every decade, starting with a 1919 Waterloo Boy.
Recent Brown Farm Pioneer Days events have included steam-powered sawmill demonstrations and a hay-baling machine running on real horsepower. Visitors also could see blacksmiths pounding metal into shape and pioneer enthusiasts known as buckskinners setting up teepees and demonstrating homesteading skills dating back to the early days of westward expansion.
The event is free, but attendees are encouraged to make a donation. Financially, the event keeps the Brown Farm alive, along with proceeds from farming profits, grant awards and the occasional estate donation.
The Central City Historical Society also owns and operates three other entities - the Sawyer House, the Library Museum and the Paris School. Volunteers are welcomed. More information is on the Brown Farm Pioneer Days Facebook page or by calling (319) 540-5950.
Volunteer David Goodlove, a farmer who lives around the corner, is excited about the elbow grease and ideas that younger generations can bring to the farm.
'It's not all of us that are 78 years old anymore,” he said. 'We've got some younger people that are willing to step up and take some leadership roles so us oldies can kind of sit back and say ‘OK, this is your baby now, let's see what you can do with it.' ”
Joe Coffey is a freelance writer and former journalist, educator and content marketer in Cedar Rapids. He has a master's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa and is writing a book on Grant Wood. Comments: coffeygrande@gmail.com
Lloyd Brown was an early 'picker' of antiques, salvage and scrap metal. This was the scene at a 1971 antiques auction at the Brown farm near Central City. (Central City Historical Society)
Lloyd Brown (left) is pictured around 1930 with his sister, Opal, and brothers Everett and Raymond. (Central City Historical Society)
The Brown farmhouse at 1361 Sawyer Rd. is a mile-and-a-half east of Central City. Two years ago, a tornado damaged the home's roof and a number of farm buildings a month before the annual Brown Farm Pioneer Days. Volunteers cleaned up everything in time for the event. (Joe Coffey/The History Center)
Most of the items in Lloyd Brown's big shed full of antiques have tags on them with minimal information. Supposedly, Brown kept detailed notes of each item in a catalog, but no one knows where those notes are. (Joe Coffey/The History Center)
The Case coal-fired steam engines from the early 1900s could power an array of farming equipment via long belts. This photo was taken at Brown Farm Pioneer Days in July as the engine was running a sawmill. (Photo by Jim Greif)
Lloyd Brown, who farmed near Central City, was a bit of showman. He enjoyed welding random scrapyard parts together to create nonsensical machines. He enjoyed asking people if they knew what the machines were for. (Joe Coffey/The History Center)
The Brown Farm near Central City was once known as Tom Bond farm. Bond is pictured in front of the farmhouse, around 1901, at a reunion of the extended Bond, Pike and McCrellis families. Bond and his second wife, Belle, are standing in the back row. Edna Pike, who would become Lloyd Brown's mother, is seated by the tree at right. (Brown Farm/courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Boyd Palmer)
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