Bill Hedrick couldn’t have imagined what he was starting when he bought his first well-used tractor in 1970. The art of tractor collecting was a few years in the future yet. Bill, a mechanic by trade, decided he would buy a tractor here and there at farm auctions as neighbors retired, and fix them up.

As tractor collecting developed into a hobby, his son Jason and his family caught the bug. Today, Bill and his wife, Mary, own some of the tractors in their collection, and Jason and his family — even his children — also own tractors.

“We reached 100 tractors, counting our garden tractors, this year,” Bill, now retired, explains. “Many of them are restored; we are still working on a few of them. We have some unique ones, and many of them have a story.”

Once a year, usually on a Saturday in June, the Hedricks display every tractor they own in their barn lot near Battleground, Ind. But they don’t stop there. They invite neighbors and other local collectors to bring their tractors and line them up for others to see as well.

“We need to get them out of the barn to run them anyway, so we figure it’s a good time to share them with other people,” Bill says. “Plus, it gives many of our friends a chance to show off their tractors as well.”

The daylong event includes a pitch-in dinner at noon and a tractor parade early in the afternoon. Anyone who wants to can drive one of the Hedricks’ tractors, and those who brought tractors drive their own. They make a short drive, about a mile, down to a neighbor’s farm and back.

Despite the pandemic, the Hedricks elected to hold their event at their farm on June 20. This year’s event turned out to be the biggest one yet, Bill reports. Counting their own tractors, there were 185 in all, plus 43 hit-and-miss engines and 10 “old vehicles” of various descriptions.

To get a better feel for what the event is like, check out the pictures here. You can also Google “Hedrick Tractor Day 2020” and watch a video of the event.