Welcome to Spaldings Corner, a unique website
with authentic, historical relevance, delicious treats, and more!

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Here you will meet John Spalding who boasts the #1 collection of vintage, rare, and original copyrighted, 100+ year old photographs of American Steam Tractors.

The Early Years:

The true origin of “Spalding’s Corner” had to have its roots firmly planted at the Central States Threshermen’s Reunion in Pontiac, Illinois. On Labor Day weekend, in 1960, at the tender age of 4, John F. Spalding was being led around America’s second oldest steam tractor show by his mother, Peg Spalding, the editor and chief photographer for The Magazine of Livingston County. Year after year, while his mother spent days at 4-H Park taking photos of the show, John was allowed to explore this loud, powerful, and exciting new world. For the next 16 years straight, John played over every engine, haystack, threshing machine, and exhibit that the reunion had to offer. He could traverse 4-H Park with his eyes closed! Thus began John’s intense love and fascination with the amazing North American steam tractor.

The Spalding Collection

In the late 1970s John, while browsing a local flea market, stumbled upon a 1910 real picture postcard (rppc) of a J. I. Case 110 hp steam tractor plowing the soil in North Dakota. For a mere dollar bill, Spalding’s addiction to vintage steam tractor photographs was born. Since that day, John F. Spalding has scoured garage sales, flea markets, the Internet, estate sales, auctions, and --yes-- even eBay, to find those rare historical photographs.