GERMAN VALLEY – Brand loyalty is a big thing in the farming world.

IH red. John Deere green. New Holland blue … whatever their choice, farmers aren’t afraid to show their true colors.

Rick Garnhart’s is green — no, not that green.

The German Valley farmer’s green of choice is a shade darker than that other green, and belongs to the gone — but far from forgotten — maker of Oliver farm equipment, once one of the leading tractor makers in the industry.

And as far as Garnhart is concerned, they’re still a leader.

Garnhart, 74, still uses Oliver tractors on his nearly century-old family Hereford cattle farm, but his brand loyalty doesn’t stop there. He’s also turned decades of farm life, 50-plus years in the auction business, and a never-ending quest for collecting into one of the Midwest’s most impressive shrines to “the finest in farm machinery,” a museum that houses all things Oliver.

Garnhart’s Oliver Museum is a treasure trove filled with anything bearing the brand’s name and logo, from local mementos and literature to one-of-a-kind special edition toys still safely packed in their boxes.

Not many Olivers are driving on the dirt these days, as the last one was made in 1976, but Garnhart is keeping its more-than-100-year history alive for future generations through his working collection and museum.

“If you don’t preserve it for people, they won’t see it and talk about it,” Garnhart said. “I like to show it to people. I didn’t buy it to hide it in a closet. I bought it to show. If you’re an Oliver geek, we’ll sit here and talk for hours. They may know where something is that I need, and I may know where something is that they need and can trade.”

Oliver’s history begins with the Oliver Chilled Plow Works, founded in 1853 by John Oliver in Indiana. Later acquisitions, including that of Hart-Paar, resulted in the forming of the Oliver Farm Equipment Company in 1929. In 1960, White Motor Corporation purchased Oliver and made it a subsidiary, changing its name to Oliver Corporation. White discontinued the Oliver name in 1976, and it has descended into the AGCO brand of machinery.

“It its day, they were very simple to work on,” Garnhart said. “If you had a crescent wrench and a ball peen hammer, you could fix an Oliver. Today you need to have a computer to do all of that. They were honest with horsepower, they weren’t expensive. You could buy a new Oliver 88 for $1,200-$1,500 bucks in its day. Today, a restored one would cost about $5,000-$6,000.”

Garnhart will occasionally bring out his tractors to show visitors, but they’re largely for farm work or on display for special occasions such as local tractor ride events and the occasional open house he’ll have in the summer. For now, though, they were put away in early September for the winter.

Meanwhile, the museum is a tightly-packed tribute to Olivers featuring a wide array of items: toys, sales literature, manuals, signs, key fobs (including one from 1890, the oldest item in the museum), pins and pencils, calendars, yardsticks, wrenches, thermometers, jacks and jackets,, decals still rolled up in the original boxes, shipping tags, ashtrays, plaques and parts — you name it and he’s probably got it, and if he doesn’t he’s still trying to track it down. The collection of thousands of items has been a work in progress for around 60 years, and with such a wide range of memorabilia, there’s no end in sight.

Each piece has a story, and he’s happy to tell them. As for Garnhart’s story, it began with his father Virl’s commitment to the brand, and like the tractors he’s so fond of, it’s just kept on going. He began displaying his collection to the public in 2000, after decades of collecting.

“Most people wouldn’t look for things like this, but when I go to an antique shop, I look for them,” Garnhart said. “It’s got to go home with me. That’s the passion about finding something. People will say, ‘You have everything.’ Well, there’s always something else out there. You never know.”

In an age before the internet, sales brochures and booklets at implement dealers were the “websites” of their day, packed with information on the latest Oliver equipment. Worn and well-used during their time, these days many of the books are hard to find in their original binding, Garnhart said, but their value to Oliver collectors is priceless, each page filled with facts about the Oliver brand.

“Years ago, nearly every wall was full of literature,” Garnhart said. “You’d take it home and study it for three or four days, and if you wanted to buy a new manure spreader or a new corn picker, you’d go back to the dealer and then look at the real thing.”

That’s how Garnhart and his father sought their equipment years ago.

The closest Oliver dealer to town was owned by brothers Earl and Walter Ratmeyer in Forreston, which was in operation from 1929-71. Walter was also a mechanic who developed a hydraulic system on Oliver 77s and 88s. Today, many Ratmeyer items have found a home in Garnhart’s collection. The Ratmeyers sold to Forreston farmer Derald DeVries in 1971; he saw the business transition into the White brand a few years later and closed it in 1991, with Garnhart conducting the auction.

Getting to know the Ratmeyers helped inspire Garnhart in his mission to promote and preserve the Oliver tradition.

“That really kicked me in gear to get into die-hard collecting,” Garnhart said. “I got to know the Ratmeyer brothers. They’re gone now, but I picked their brains a lot. I’d go down there and talk and talk.”

Dealership signs are among the largest pieces of Garnhart’s collection. One of them is from the Badger Farm Store in Clinton, Wis., once the state’s largest Oliver dealer. It used to lease between 400 to 500 tractors a year to the Green Giant vegetable company, which had a plant about 20 miles south of town in Belvidere.

Oliver also acted as a secondary brand for some dealerships, such as one in Davis owned by John Hessenthaler, which sold Case tractors and Oliver parts. While Hessenthaler Case items are more common, seeing one with Oliver on it is rare, Garnhart said.

When he’s not tending to the family’s Mud Creek Farms, where he works with his wife Linda, son Andrew and Andrew’s wife Christy, he’s always keeping his eyes peeled for Oliver green, looking for that certain piece he needs or one he’s never seen before.

It’s “the enjoyment of the history and the enjoyment of not seeing something before” that keeps him going on his quest, he said. Sometimes he’ll come home with memorabilia from other brands, which he’ll use as “trade bait,” he said.

Among his most sought-out items are machines and equipment that Oliver manufactured during World War II for the war effort such as graders, forklifts, road rollers, crawlers and power units; few of those were made for civilian use and most were repurposed after the war. Oliver also made outboard boat motors during the 1950s; he has four of those.

Visitors come from all over — agriculture radio voice Max Armstrong has stopped by twice — and some even pass along pieces for the museum. Sometimes Garnhart will hand out toy tractors to kids who visit, hopefully planting the seed of a future tractor collector like himself. “It’s quite the hobby,” he said. “My grandchildren seem to want to be in it, and hopefully I can encourage them.”

That may be the real story of this place — not the metal, not the memorabilia, but the way it keeps memory alive. When the day comes that Garnhart can no longer tend to the museum, he has plans to will it to his grandchildren. Even if they wind up not being interested, he’d still like to see it all preserved at a museum somewhere, he said.

To him, every sign, every wrench, every faded catalog carries a story that deserves to be preserved.

“They’re all different and no two are alike,” Garnhart said. “It’s really different. “I drive a lot and see a lot of things. Every now and then I’ll see something at an auction, but not there’s not as much at those. Anybody can find John Deere and Case-IH but not a lot of Oliver – and that’s why I like doing this so much. I got thousands of pieces that most guys don’t collect, but I do.”

Rick Garnhart’s Oliver museum, 6372 Edwardsville Road in German Valley, is open by appointment. Call 815-238-3044 to arrange a visit or for more information.