Iowa All Over: ‘Agriculture is our industry’

DYERSVILLE — They are green and yellow, they are red and blue. They are intricate and detailed, some antique and some foreign.

But all the pieces on display at the National Farm Toy Museum in Dyersville are representations of the rural community's deeply rooted connection to agriculture.

As Jessica Pape, assistant director of the Dyersville Area Chamber of Commerce, puts it, 'Agriculture is our industry.'

'People from anywhere ask what makes Dyersville continue, it definitely is agriculture,' Pape said.

Dyersville, in Dubuque County, has a population of about 4,000. The city is known as the site where the 1989 movie 'Field of Dreams' was filmed.

In 1959, the Ertl Co., which makes die-cast metal collectible replicas of various vehicles, moved to Dyersville. Fred and Gertrude Ertl had begun making toy tractors in their basement in 1945 in Dubuque, but once the company moved to Dyersville, it began to boom, said Amanda Schwartz, manager of the museum.

From the family enterprise, Ertl has become a worldwide marketer of toys, model kits and the largest producer of toy farm equipment. Two other farm toy companies came to Dyersville, too — SpecCast and Scale Models Toys, owned and operated by Joe Ertl.

Scale Models Toys is not affiliated with the Ertl Company.

Groundbreaking began for the National Farm Toy Museum in August 1986. The museum opened the following year.

One of the displays in the museum is a scale model John Deere tractor. Neatly lined in rows are the toy tractors of different sizes, depicting how many toy tractors it would take to stretch across an actual one.

In addition to thousands of toys, there are custom-built dioramas that represent the traditional homestead. Some are made using a 3D printer, Schwartz noted.

Last year, 20,000 people visited the museum, and this June 5 and 6 Dyersville will host the 30th anniversary Summer Farm Toy Show. The event will be held at the museum and Beckman Catholic High School.

On a rainy mid-May day, a group of students from Tipton, Mo., toured the museum, having cut short their planned excursion to the Field of Dreams. Gary Morris, agriculture teacher and Future Farmers of America chapter adviser, said the museum visit offers his students 'a peek into the past.'

For collectors, farm toys evoke memories, Schwartz said.

'Farm toys are one of those tangible connections for people,' she said. 'For kids, they see them, and living here in Iowa and the Midwest, it's something that they see.

'It's a fun connection to agriculture, to knowing their food and understanding that concept and what that tractor or combine equipment does ...

'Farming is hard work,' Schwartz said. 'It still is today.'

If you go

What: National Farm Toy Museum

Where: 1110 16th Ave. Court SE, Dyersville

Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., daily.

Admission: $5.

For more information, call (563) 875-2727 or go to www.nationalfarmtoymuseum.com.