What started off as an idea to help potato farmers turned into something all local farmers needed. When Willis Dahlman’s father decided to build his first potato harvesting machine in 1924, he could not have predicted the impact it would have.
Ninety-two years later, Dahlman is teaming with the Isanti County Historical Society and the Isanti County Agricultural Society to create the Isanti County Agricultural Museum. The museum is still a work in progress, but when completed it will show the timeline of the Dahlman family’s potato harvesting machines.
A fundraiser to help make the agricultural museum a reality will be held April 8 in the Community Center at the Isanti County Fairgrounds in Cambridge. The event will feature a roast beef dinner prepared by caterer Susan Morris and served between 3:30-7 p.m. Wine coolers and beer will be available.
Advance tickets are available for $30 online at isanticountyfair.com. The event will also feature a silent action from 3:30-7 p.m. and a live auction from 7-8 p.m.
Dahlman watched his father build his first machines and start his own business. He was selling the pickers all over the Cambridge area. At first, no one knew how the machine would work or how useful it would be. Dahlman mentioned his family was skeptical at the time.
“I can just hear my grandpa say, ‘Well, that’s kind of stupid,’” he said.
It was not long until his machines were being sold outside of Isanti County, as they were in high demand. His original potato picker could do the work of nine men, and according to Dahlman, his dad “was swamped with orders.”
Then as 1929 was turning into the new decade, the market all but stopped. Once the Great Depression hit, there was no more demand for pickers. He was forced to stop selling until around 1938, when his dad and grandpa improved their machine. Once the market picked up in the early 1940s, they were back in action selling their pickers from Bethel to Braham.
Around the time Dahlman started college at the University of Minnesota, his father had perfected his machine. He created a machine that would combine the work of a potato digger and picker.
This was his first ever potato combine, which he tested in Princeton. After the initial test showed off what the combine could do, it was purchased and the demand went through the roof.
This new combine was too large to fit in the building they were currently operating out of, and it was not safe to keep them outside. Dahlman, who was an engineering student at the time, returned home to design a new warehouse for manufacturing and storing the combines.
Since the warehouse was sold in 1955, Dahlman has remained connected with his father’s machines. He has one of each model that was built and has begun the process of restoring them to display in the museum.
As a large part of the agriculture history of Isanti County, it is only fitting the machines will be prominently featured at the new museum when it is built.
Currently, the museum is proposed to be built on a 5-acre plot by the Isanti County Historical Society building, east of the fairgrounds in Cambridge. The goal for the Historical Society at the moment is to continue to raise funding for the building. The Isanti County Agricultural Society has also applied for a grant through the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to help fund the cost of building the Isanti County Agricultural Museum.