Marvin Bules’ round barn is hard to miss driving through the sleepy, but quaint, town of Pond Creek, Oklahoma. What is housed in this hand-built structure might be even more awe-inspiring: Numerous pieces of antique machinery representing generations of agriculture and other industries.
Bules was raised east of Pond Creek and after joining the Army and working in Wichita. Kansas, for a few years, he returned to his now home in 1958 to start farming. He has raised wheat, alfalfa and cattle. Bules says he was always interested in collecting machinery.
“I can’t exactly explain why I collect,” he said. “I’m just interested in these things. Part of it is it reminds me of a simpler time.”
In 2005, Bules finished building his round barn to store and display his antique machinery. It is one of three in Oklahoma and is 68 feet in diameter with several stories and a 2,400-pound cupola that is 53 feet high.
Almost 52,000 bricks were used in its 18-foot walls and a spiral staircase leads all the way up to the third level. The staircase includes 66 steps and is free standing. The second story is 3,500 square feet. A wide ramp at the front of the barn provides access to the second floor entryway so equipment can easily be moved to the second story.
The roof is covered by thousands of feet of one by four shingles that had to be soaked before being bent into place. The shingles are cedar and many had to be trimmed to fit the curve of the roof.
The view from the top overlooks the town of Pond Creek, U.S. Highway 81, the Salt Fork River, the railroad and Salt Fork crossing of the Chisholm Trail. Amazingly, Bules came up with the plans for the barn by himself.
“I just thought it was neat,” he said. “I’d seen round barns in Iowa and Indiana and I thought I could build one and put my antiques in it. I just took it day by day making decisions about the building plans.”
The finished product is so beautiful inside and out, weddings, banquets and other events were held inside the barn for years. Nowadays, Bules likes to enjoy it the way it was meant to be, a museum of sorts for his antiques.
Antique fixation
Bules has found his antiques all over at different sales and auctions, even in other states. Among the equipment, some still run when fired up but others are motionless and just to be looked at.
Some of his equipment is left in its natural state as far as the paint but some of it has undergone paint restoration. Bules says he does the paint jobs himself, although he often hires someone to do the lettering.
Anything goes in Bules’ eye, he does not discriminate against brands of equipment. He likes all the major brands such as John Deere and Case IH, but also lesser-known brands that are not talked about as much.
Some of his more valued pieces of equipment include a horse-drawn U.S. mail delivery cart from the early 1900s fully equipped with a charcoal stove, horse-drawn fuel delivery wagon from the early 1900s, a Van Brunt horse-drawn drill and 1914 Ford Model T touring car.
“I didn’t buy any of this stuff thinking the monetary value would grow, I just bought it because I liked it,” Bules said.
The crown jewel of his collection is a 1919 General Ordinance or “GO” tractor. This company only made tractors from 1919 to 1920 and Bules says he only knows of six in existence.
“We don’t know how many they built in the 2-year-span but they weren’t very good tractors so they didn’t stick around,” he said, adding “I would never sell it.”
However, Bules is not just looking for the valuable. He is also looking for the strange.
“When I go to an auction I’m just looking for something I haven’t seen before,” he said.
Some of those items include a dog treadmill used to power a butter churn, an antique popcorn machine and an original log cabin he took apart in pieces and put back together inside an old hardware store in Pond Creek, which he uses to house the overflow of his collection. Many smaller and more delicate antiques like books and papers as well as wooden items, like the log cabin and two wooden grain separators, are kept in the building to save them from the elements.
Eventually Bules plans to have all the equipment moved to the round barn, but with over 100 pieces of large equipment, it is a still a work in progress. One of his goals is to keep his collection and the round barn around for years to come.
“All of the equipment is in the Bules Family Trust to keep it going for other people to enjoy.”
Although it was once easy to stumble upon some of the items in Bules’ collection, he says auctions selling antique machinery have gotten harder and harder to find in recent years.
“We used to go to quite a few sales but they’re getting scarce anymore,” he said.
However, the limited number of auctions make it all the more fun to look for those rare diamonds in the rough.
Bules says antiques are his hobby, but more appropriately they are his passion. It is a love for vintage possessions that will not soon fade. He hopes the round barn and the antiques will be a landmark for people to enjoy as they drive by. He wants the history inside to be appreciated by future generations and maybe some of his fondness for antiques will rub off on them.
“I’ll never stop collecting, I’ll just keep on going,” he said unapologetically.
Lacey Newlin can be reached at [email protected].
