Lubbock's American Museum of Agriculture is seeking funding for a new building.
Agricultural historians and community activists have launched a capital campaign to raise $5 million to construct a building in Lubbock, Texas, in order to house the tractors and other farm implements in the collection of the American Museum of Agriculture.
Lacee Fraze, executive director of the museum - currently located in a leased building - said the organization has been working with an architecture firm on developing a master plan, according to the Avalanche Journal.
The museum is planning a fundraiser gala for spring 2010 to help raise the remainder of the funds. The museum already has received cash and pledges worth $1.5 million, according to the newspaper.
Alton Brazell, a former Lubbock County Commissioner for 36 years, started the museum by collecting antique tractors and other farm equipment that tell the story of this region's agricultural past. In 2002, a nonprofit organization formally opened the museum at its present location.
Today, the collection includes household items as well as restored tractors, a threshing machine, broadcast binder, combine, 71 pedal tractors, 300 die-cast toy tractors and approximately 300 other artifacts and pieces of smaller equipment.
In storage, the museum has horse-drawn equipment, field condition tractors, threshing machines, combines, grain binders, mowing machines, grain drills, hay rakes, hay balers, cotton strippers and cotton trailers.
