The Mystery of the Combine on the Flood Plain

About half of an old pull type K-12 Case Combine remains on the flood plain between the Little Muddy reservoir and the Missouri River.

 

 

 

On a beautiful day in the high 20's with no wind and ample snow I snowshoed across the frozen Little Muddy to the carcass of an old combine from the 1930s. Yesterday was in the high 30s, an extremely unusual temperature for January, but the unusual is now the usual. The combine is missing the grain tank, the engine, drive platform and most of the header. The parts may have been taken for scrap or parts for another machine. What is left is mostly sheet metal and open air, the primary reason why so many old combines and threshing machines have lasted to become art objects on the prairies, since the cost of scraping them exceeds any scrap price one would get.

 I am looking for a photo online of the whole combine, but photos of historic combines on the internet are not extensive. Why it ended up in a field on the floodplain at the junction to the Missouri and the Little Muddy would be an interesting story. My guess from the relatively level field is that it was once farmed and it was left long ago.

The small combine reminds me of the teardrop camper trailers and would make a fun conversion.