The Lester F. Larsen Tractor Test and Power Museum, on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s East Campus, is housed in the original Nebraska Tractor Test Laboratory building from 1920. Its collection of about 40 tractors and related equipment, from the early 1900s through the 1960s, tells the story of tractor testing in Nebraska and of how power came to the farm.
How tractor testing began. Wilmot F. Crozier, a farmer from Osceola in Polk County, bought a “Ford” tractor that did not perform as advertised. The company was not Henry Ford’s; it had borrowed the name from a man named Ford to confuse buyers. After Crozier was elected to the Legislature, he and Senator Charles J. Warner of Waverly sponsored the Nebraska Tractor Test Law of 1919. It required that any tractor sold in Nebraska have its advertised performance verified by a board of three engineers at the university. The test laboratory opened in 1920, and a Waterloo Boy Model N was the first tractor to complete the test. Nebraska’s laboratory became the officially designated tractor test station of the United States, and testing still goes on in the newer laboratory next door.
The museum. In 1980 the American Society of Agricultural Engineers named the original laboratory a historic landmark. After testing moved next door, the old building became the museum, which opened in 1998 and is named for Lester F. Larsen, the laboratory’s chief engineer from 1946 to 1975. Tractors in the collection include a Waterloo Boy Model N, a Ford 8-16 (the kind of tractor that started it all), a 1920 Fordson, a Heider Model C, a Moline Universal Model D, an Allis-Chalmers Model G, a Ford 8N and a John Deere 820.
Visiting. Open Tuesday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; closed weekends, Mondays and university holidays. Admission is a suggested donation of $5 per adult; UNL students and staff, military families and veterans are free. The museum is at North 35th and Fair Streets on East Campus. Call 402-472-8389 to check hours or to arrange a group visit.
Nearby: the University of Nebraska State Museum (Morrill Hall) on City Campus and other places to visit in Lincoln. Wilmot Crozier’s home county is remembered at the Polk County Historical Museum.