Centralia, Wash. — Dave King may be 70-something years old, but get him near a tractor and you'll catch a glimpse of the little farm boy who grew up in rural Lewis County.
“You know what they say about taking the kid off the farm, you really can't get it out of his heart,” said King.
Stop by the old Lewis County Lumber Company Building, and you'll find King giving his heart to the tractors he's collected for decades at King Agriculture Museum.
“I don't let the tires go flat,” King said. “I don't let them get dirty. I only run them so often.”
Oh, and they do run. Every single tractor in the collection.
“You can take any of these today and put them in the field and cultivate, plow, whatever you would want to do with them,” said King.
A machinist by trade, King started a side business in the 90's, selling tractors for extra money.
“And then after buying and selling them for a while, they started to stick," he said.
They really started to stick.
“Some people say it is a sickness,” laughed King. “Yeah, it probably is.”
King has bought tractors all over the world.
“You know I tell my friends I'm not going to buy any more tractors and this year I bought five of them,” said King.
He's got 70 here and another 10 in his barn at home.
“Each one needs something,” said King. “A little tinkering, a little something. Nothing major but it all takes time.”
And it's not just tractors you'll find here.
“This door is off the Kalakala ferry that used to run from Seattle to Bremerton in 1935 to 1968,” he said.
King also has a collection of glass floats, company pens, even pencil sharpeners.
“When you collect, you collect everything,” said King.
And now that collection is available for the world to see. Because Dave King has always been the kind of guy who likes to share his toys.
“You know I've got the greatest toy box in the world.”
