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Director of Jessamine show has antique-tractor collection

January 04, 2012|By Jonathan Kleppinger | jkleppinger@jessaminejournal.com

Photo by Jonathan Kleppinger

Jim Mahan grew up on a farm just north of Jessamine County using equipment that has since been antiquated. Now the 67-year-old has a barn full of the now-antique tractors that he says help keep people in touch with the past.

Mahan has more than 30 restored tractors on his farm that sits in Fayette, Scott and Bourbon counties. Some tractors date back to 1939, and he has many different makes — Farmall, John Deere, Allis Chalmers and Ford.

Mahan moved to the farm north of Lexington from his property near the corner of Nicholasville Road and Man O’ War Road about 20 years ago.

It was about that same time that Mahan began taking his tractors to antique-farm-equipment shows.
“Everybody asks, ‘What do you do at a tractor show?’ I say, ‘Well, mainly, you sit around and eat and tell lies,’” Mahan said with a laugh. “That’s almost the truth. When everybody has a common interest of restoring or keeping or painting or taking care of old antique equipment and tractors, you kind of have a camaraderie that’s fun.”

Mahan first attended the annual Jessamine County Antique Farm Equipment Show in 1991 when it was in its fifth year. He was a director of the show in 2011.

The love of old equipment was slow to develop for Mahan, as for much of his life he was using tools that would be superseded and outdated by new technology.

“In those days, I wasn’t really collecting — I was actually using some old tractors just because of necessity,” he said. “I kept a couple of those old things I never did trade in or get rid of.

“I don’t really know what started that (collecting) bug. I’ve just always appreciated the things of the past. I don’t think any of us realize how hard our forefathers had it in everything they did, and that’s what got me interested.”

Mahan was the third generation to cultivate the farm off Man O’ War; now he watches his two sons as they run the family’s farm in a new location.

Antique farm equipment involves more than just tractors; Mahan has other tools and machines like corn choppers and wheat thrashers scattered throughout barns on the farm. And he typically goes to a show each weekend during the warm months, even attaching a small camper with a king-size bed to the top of his trailer so he can stay at the shows all weekend.

The grandfather of six said appreciation for antique equipment — and time to restore it — comes with age.

“I think it’s only natural that any of us as young people aren’t as appreciative of the old and the antiques as you become when you get older,” he said. “I didn’t care that much about old antique junk when I was much younger, so I think that just kind of goes with the territory, that you like it more the older you get.”
The Jessamine County Antique Farm Equipment Show is hosted each September at the Jessamine County fairgrounds in Nicholasville.

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