Antique Farm Wagons

ErnDog50 · Dec 7, 2017

When I was growing up on the farm in the 50's and 60's it seems that every farm had at least one "barge" style wagon with removable end gates and sides. This
allowed you to haul ear corn when the sides and ends were in place and to haul baled hay when the sides and ends were remove. All of these wagons had metal
hardware to hold the side boards in place, metal rods to hold the end gates securely as well as a chain in the middle to keep the sides from bulging. I have
collected a few of these wagons and my question is, does anyone out there know of a source for this original farm wagon hardware or a source for reproduction farm
wagon hardware?

Adirondack case guy · Dec 7, 2017

The hardware should be pretty easy to build yourself if you have welding capabilities, with some flat iron and round rod to make hoops, stake pockets, and corner locks.
Loren

Joe W. · Dec 7, 2017

I build parade wagons as a hobby and have almost all of my hardware built to my plans at a local welding shop. I take my hand-drawn plans to them and they have been able to bend, weld, and CNC to fabricate everything I have requested. You probably have a similar shop near you. In addition, some ready-made hardware is available from several sources online - just google horse drawn wagon parts. One of those is a company in South Dakota I have used - Hansen Wheel and Wagon Shop. Poke the link below. Others I have used include Texas Wagon Works and American Carriage.
Hansen Wheel

fastfarmall · Dec 9, 2017

Well one name that comes to mind is,Stan-Hoist, they were made somewhere in Nebraska, and in their later years i believe they bought Westendorf running gears,to put under the barge box, And i wonder if Omaha Standard didn't offer some barge boxes also, But the Stan Hoist had a nice big ear corn, end gate !

Roger Tomfohrde · Dec 10, 2017

We had one labeled Minnesota built at a prison in Minnesota. They also made rakes and a few other pieces. Flare wagon?

JMS/.MN · Dec 10, 2017

MN Prison Industries used to make mowers, rakes, running gears, flare boxes, and gravity boxes. Dunno about barge boxes. Stillwater also had a farm to raise food for the prison. Now you can"t make the prisoners work, even though they learned a trade. So Prison Industries was shut down.

Roger Tomfohrde · Dec 11, 2017

Yes, we had a barge box labeled Minnesota.Red wooden sides similar to a truck with the stake pockets and it had a really good endgate that would swing up with two pins on the bottom or you could use a smaller door that slid up. 7 x 14 I think were the dimensions with about 2 foot sides it was grain tight. I believe my brother still has it. My dad put side extensions on it to pick corn. It was much better than the home built one we had also plus a couple of the flare wagons.

Farmall 656 · Dec 12, 2017

I have been around barge box wagons awhile and yet to find metal parts for them outside of finding "parts" wagon. Some parts can be made at your local metal shop and honestly, I think most of what I have seen is pretty easy for a good metal shop to make. The metal parts seem to be common dimensions and sizes because I believe many of the companies who made them back in the day had just stock/standard metal. As for the Minnesota wagons, the prison did make 3 barge boxes and 2 flare boxes before they made gravity wagons right up to the end of production in the 1990s. I have one of all of them except the 125 flare wagon. I know they did make a few of the MN barge boxes with green wood/irons and varnished wood and red irons. I have yet to come across one or two of these other colors but may create one in the future.

Antique Farm Wagons

ErnDog50

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Adirondack case guy

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Joe W.

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fastfarmall

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Roger Tomfohrde

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JMS/.MN

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Roger Tomfohrde

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Farmall 656

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