our visit to the john deere pavillion and harvester works factory
Our campground was in Davenport, Iowa right across the Mississippi River from Moline, Illinois but most of our outings were across the river in Moline. Our first outing was to the John Deere Pavillion Museum in downtown Moline.
As you can see, some of their farm equipment is quite massive!A pretty cool mural outside of the original factory in Moline.John Deere first invention was a plow to be pulled by a horse way back in the early 1800’sOne of his first tractors. I’ll bet it road real smooth with no suspension and those steel wheels! Of course, most of the roads you would encounter back then would be dirt anyway.A more modern version; pneumatic tires even!In the early 1900’s (1910 or so) he invented the first harvester. This timeline shows the progression from then to present day.They also build forestry equipment; here is a machine that cuts the tree, strips it and puts the log on a pile or a truck!
Pretty cushy cab, AC and all!One of their experimental machines; a walking forestry harvester machine. They told us it was never produced because it proved to be too costly to build.
John Deere has made lawn care equipment for years from push behind mowers to all sizes of lawn and small tractors. One of their cooler products; an autonomous lawn mower! It’s like Roomba for your lawn! it just mows on it’s own with no human intervention needed! Unfortunately for now; only available in their European market.
On advice from one of the very helpful docents at the Pavilion, we signed up and took the Harvester Plant tour; really fascinating how they make these giant machines! We saw everything from sheet metal being punched and formed to the finished tractor driving on it’s own power at the end of the line; VERY impressive! Unfortunately but understandable, no cameras were allowed on the tour so I only got outside pictures and in their lobby. The plant has a total of 71 acres under roof!
Due to the size of this cache I need to take a few pictures to show it all to you; massive!A shot of the guts of this beast. I believe they told us it has a 16l diesel motor!
They allowed you to sit in the drivers seat; very high tech! It’s computer controlled with satellite and sensors to keep it perfectly aligned with the crop rows! The driver is pretty much just there to monitor what it’s doing and intervene if there’s a problem!
our mississippi river tour on the channel cat tour boat
This was the Channel Cat tour we took. We left from the John Deere Commons Landing and stayed on until we returned there. You could get off at any of the landings if you wanted.It went under a couple of impressive bridges along the rout; it’s amazing how wide the Mississippi River is!
Some of flora along the banks of the river.A Mississippi River boat.Some of the local residents!One of the casino/hoelsI liked this boat’s name!One of the many stately homes along the river.Some more of the locals!
