MTFCA Forum

I spent a couple hours looking in a junk yard that started in late 30's and closed about 1980 50 acres of cars from late 20's to early 70's Some rare early cars and piles of antique parts and machines. A large building that was once a store and is packed with every antique you can think of but a very large tree fell on it and collapsed the roof so unsafe to enter it. Model T parts every where but I only saw one complete T. This doodle bug made from a 26-27 TT. The cars are in a heavy wooded area and they are all sunk at least a foot in the heavy black dirt. Every thing is for sale.

Hay Jim is that near you? Good to see that your getting around. George

That stuff has been sitting for a lo-ong time! I have seen trees grown around cars several times over the years, but that big tree growing around the TT cab is almost incredible. And I have never before seen a tree grown around a milk can that way.

Not many of those around anymore. Reminds me of the local junk picker yard about 3 miles from us when we growing up. Use to go over and look and dig for cars and parts in the 60’s.
About 20 years ago the son-in-law of the owner took possession of the property and wasn’t at all interested in the old cars, tractors and parts that was on the property.
He hired a local crusher and crushed and hauled off all the remains, iron and you name it.
When I found about it I drove by the place and it was leveled and cleaned up. A lot of memories went with it.

I also have to say that if you closely at the milk cans you can see the bottoms are long gone. That place must be off any well traveled road as it looks like the car remains were brought in and just left for a loooong time.

Tree on roof would not have stopped me! Neat stuff.

We have one about 20 miles from me. 20's to early 60's iron. Owner will not let you look, wont sell and wont even talk to you. All you can do is drive by when the leaves are gone and drool. Must be 80 acres of cars and trucks.
I would like to see more photo's Jim.

Wow, would like to have a look, wish it were closer. Nice doodle bug!
Thanks for posting the photos.

That’s sad Dallas about the owner being hardheaded. There are his of course but to see old cars just rot away is just plain sad. I’m 71 and remember seeing cars in like situations when I was in high school and going back a few years later only to find them weathered and done in by the weather. Sad.

Went to an auction like that looked a lot like the first photos, only more. Stuff got sold in lots in the bone yard and after got pick thru by the buyers went to the scrapper. But not everything that went to the scrapper was being scrapped. The scrappers that got the leavings are into cars, trucks, old farm machinery and such, so they go thru it back at the yard and pull what is salvageable. We bought a good number of items from the scrappers for a good price before it got loaded by them.

You can't let milk sit out like that. Surely, it has gone bad.

There was one like that in central TX in the late 1970's/early 80's that I used to make my grandmother take me to. I was living with her and was too young to drive. She was a widow and a pretty good looking 60 year old lady and the yard owner was in his 70's.

He was well-known for being completely incorrigible and hard to deal with and wouldn't let anyone on the yard. But, he'd let us on the yard so he could hit on my grandmother. While he was doing that, I'd walk the yard and look at everything....tons of Model T's and A's, lots of common stuff like Dodge Brothers, Chevies, etc, and all kinds of orphans like Whippets, Pierce Arrows, etc. The newest cars were mid-1950's models. He had a mountain of hubcaps that was stacked up to the eaves on one side of a building and sloped down to the ground about 20 feet away.

It was magical to say the least. Being in the Texas hill country, it was filled with snakes so you had to be really careful, but the "up and down" terrain and the thick trees made for a labyrinth of suprises and wonders everywhere.

I went off to the military and when I came back, there were trucks literally hauling off the very last scraps of debris. I introduced myself to a man who said he was his son. The old man had died and the son had everything scrapped....nothing saved at all....not a shred.

That's all very valuable property now and thoroughly infested with yuppies. As fate would have it, I attended an event a couple years ago that was held on the adjacent property. I stood on the fence line and could still see the outlines of the meandering roads that led through all the magnificent junk all those years ago. I'm not ashamed to admit that I stood there and cried for a few minutes, thinking of those days, that great caracature of a delightful old curmugeon and my beautiful grandmother who's been gone now for nearly three decades.

I'm fairly certain I have mentioned this before when junkyard/farm finds were being discussed, but here goes again for the benefit of those, who have come onto this website in the last few years. The background of this story was told to me in 1968 by an antique car collector/parts dealer, who grew up in the area and used to comb farm fields, ravines and abandoned barns, collecting radiator shell plates and radiator caps, eventually amassing a world-class collection. He found this farm ditch as a boy and picked it over for parts. I later received verification from the farmer's son that the story told to me was correct.
In 1940, a farmer near Washington, Iowa, bought about 50 Model A, B and T bodies from Kennedy's All-Ford Junkyard and had them delivered to his farm. No engines, frames or anything chassis-related. Just sheet metal. Why did he do this? The land he farmed down the road from his house was divided by a "T" ravine that ran for about 1/4 mile before splitting into the line across the "T". While plowing the one field, he had to drive his tractor past the ravine to get to the other side, interrupting his plowing and wasting a lot of time and effort, not to mention the lost area of the ditch that could not be planted. His idea was to place these car bodies every 10-15 feet apart from each other down in the bottom of the ditch/ravine so that over the years as the land shifted, the dirt would form around the bodies and eventually fill the ditch so that it could be farmed. Well, the best laid plans of mice and men...
28 years later in 1968, the bodies had only sunken down an inch or two and the farmer was long dead. His idea had not worked; at least not in his lifetime. Since getting involved in Model A's in 1966, I had always been more interested in seeing old Fords that had been abandoned than viewing a line of restored ones. So, I begged the man to give me directions to the ditch. He finally relented and gave me rough directions to the ditch. After a great deal of driving up and down gravel farm roads, my Model A buddy and I saw a portion of a Sport Coupe sticking up from a ditch near one road. We'd found the ditch with all those bodies! It was like finding the Holy Grail as we stumbled through the ditch, inspecting one old Ford body after another, not knowing what the next few feet would reveal.
Cutting to the chase, the bodies were mostly Model A's, and surprisingly quite a few '28-29 Sport Coupes/Business Coupes. But there was also a VERY RARE 1931 Convertible Sedan (400-A) body with partial top irons, as well as both a '28 and '30 roadster body. The rest were sedans or coupes. A few Model T bodies were scattered here and there, too. Three 1932-34 Ford pickup bodies and beds sat in one area. My friend and I were able to purchase the A-400 and the two roadster bodies from the farmer's grown son, as well as a few body parts. For years thereafter I made pilgrimages to that ditch to check on the remaining bodies' status. Each time I visited, the bodies had sunken a little deeper into the earth. My last visit was earlier this year after a seven-year hiatus. I was shocked at the condition of the bodies! Many that had been o.k. 10 years prior were almost all gone now, or had fallen apart. As you can see from the photos I took in late March of this year, it won't be too long before even these bodies are gone. I equate my personal decline with the decline of these bodies: as they have aged and become decrepit, so have I. Someday these bodies will be completely buried and corn will grow over their graves. I wonder what will grow over mine, besides weeds?
Marshall

I'm guessing that junkyard is in central Michigan...makes me want to go digging.

Years ago I flew in a B-25 Bomber to an airshow at Charleston West Virginia. While waiting our turn to go roaring in and attack "Tokyo" we circled over the hills to the north of town. One thing I noticed was that many of the ravines back in the hills seemed to have old cars in them. The farther back in the ravine, the rustier the car. This wasn't just one sighting... they were all over the place. You've got to wonder what's hidden in them thar hills.

While flying numerous Search and Rescue missions over northern Michigan I've spotted cars and appliances abandoned in the woods far from any habitation. Who knows what gems are hiding out there.

Looks a wee bit like my neighbor’s yard...