His Dad Left Him a Paid-Off Farm and Old Equipment… His Cousin Got Debt and New Tractors 

His Dad Left Him a Paid-Off Farm and Old Equipment… His Cousin Got Debt and New Tractors 

The reading of Curtis Holloways will took place on a gray February morning in 1971 in the office of Thomas Brennan, attorney at law, above the farmers and merchants bank in Hwardan, Iowa. Harden sat in the far northwestern corner of Iowa in Sou County where the big Sue River forms a border with South Dakota.

Flat rich farmland that could produce corn and soybeans with the best of anywhere in the Midwest. Curtis had died at 68 after a short battle with lung cancer, leaving behind two sons. Raymond, who was 41, and a nephew he’d raised like a son after his brother died in Korea, Danny, who was 39. Both men had farmed with Curtis for years, expecting eventually to inherit the operation.

 What they didn’t expect was how differently Curtis would divide what he’d built. Raymond got the original 320 acres, paid off completely, not a penny owed to any bank, along with equipment Curtis owned. A 1949 John Deere model A, a 1958 John Deere 620, a 1962 40 corn planter, a 1955 grain drill, two wagons, a BOR that had seen better days, and an assortment of discs plows and cultivators that range from serviceable to nearly worthless.

 The land was valued at about $112,000, around $350 an acre, which was fair for Sou County in 1971. The equipment, if you were being generous, might fetch 8,000 at auction. Total inheritance, roughly $120,000, all equity, zero debt. Dany got different terms entirely. Curtis’s was stipulated that Dany will receive 320 acres of land that Curtis had been renting from a widow named Eleanor Voss for the past 15 years with a provision that Mrs.

 Voss had agreed to sell at $380 per acre, a friendly price, about 10% below market. The will included a cashier’s check for $25,000 as down payment with Dany responsible for financing the remaining $96,400. Additionally, Dany received authorization to purchase through the estate, a brand new International Harvester 1066 tractor and associated modern equipment financed through the John Deere dealer in town.

 Curtis had ironically arranged financing through their competitor, Total Package, potentially more land value when fully paid newer equipment, but saddled with approximately $115,000 in debt at interest rates that were already climbing past 7.5%. Before we go further, you need to understand what a 1949 John Deere Model A and a 1958 Model 620 actually were because this is central to everything that happened next.

 The Model A was first introduced in 1934 and produced until 1952, representing John Deere’s most popular rowcrop tractor of its era. By 1949, the Model A was putting out about 38 horsepower at the belt, running on gasoline or all fuel with a four-speed transmission and a two-cylinder engine that made a distinctive pop pop pop sound that old-timers still talk about with reverence.

 It weighed around 5,200 lb and could pull a two bottom plow in decent soil. By 1971, a 49 model, it was 22 years old, ancient by the standard of modern farming. But these tractors were built like anvils and could run damn near forever if you maintain them. The 620 was part of John Deere’s numbered series introduced in the late 1950s, a transitional model between the letter series and the new generation tractors that would revolutionize the industry in the60s.

 The 620 produced about 43 horsepower. Still a two-cylinder design, still that distinctive sound, but with more modern features like live hydraulics and a better electrical system. In 1971, a 58 model 620 was 13 years old. Outdated, but functional. Now, compare that to what Danny was authorized to buy, an international harvester 1066.

This was a beast of a completely different era. Introduced in 1971, the very year Curtis died, the 1066 was a turbocharged six-cylinder diesel putting out 125 horsepower. It had a cab with heat and air conditioning, power steering, independent PTO, and could pull an eight bottom plow through anything.

 It weighed over 15,000 lb and cost. Brand new in 1971, approximately $13,800. This was a tractor that represented everything modern agriculture was becoming. Bigger, faster, more powerful, more comfortable, and vastly more expensive. The two cousins walked out of Thomas Brennan’s office that February morning into completely different futures.

 Though neither fully understood it yet, Raymond felt cheated. He was a blood son and he gotten the old stuff, the paid off but tired equipment. While Danny, who Raymond loved but who wasn’t actually Curtis’s son, had been given a pathway to a modern operation. At the cafe across from the courthouse, where they sat in uncomfortable silence over coffee, Raymond finally said what he was thinking.

 He gave you the future and gave me the past. Danny, who felt guilty about the whole arrangement, tried to protest, but Raymond waved him off. It’s done. Dad made his choice. We’ll both make it work. But Raymond couldn’t shake the bitterness. That night, talking to his wife Margaret in their modest farmhouse, the same house Curtis had raised him in. Raymond made a decision.

I’m not farming with junk my whole life just because dad was too cheap to modernize. We’ve got equity. We can leverage it. Margaret, who’d grown up in town and didn’t understand farming the way Raymond did, trusted her husband’s judgment. “If that’s what you think we need to do,” she said. Within 2 months, Raymond had taken out a loan against his paid off land. $45,000 at 8.

25% interest through Farmers and Merchants Bank. He bought a used 1968 John Deere 4020, the tractor that had revolutionized farming in the mid60s with about 1,800 hours on it for $11,000. He bought a good six row planter, a better bor, upgraded his grain handling equipment, and put the rest toward operating expenses for modern farming.

He sold the Model A and the 620 at auction for a combined $3,200, which felt like getting pennies for relics. Danny meanwhile moved forward with Curtis’s plan. He bought the Voss land, financed a 96,400 as stipulated and purchased the international 1066 along with a full complement of modern implements. His total debt package came to just over $115,000 with combined payments of roughly $1,200 a month.

 It was manageable barely if corn stayed above a dollar10 a bushel and beans above $3. What neither cousin understood yet, what perhaps Curtis had understood in a way he couldn’t articulate even in his will, was that they were about to live through an economic cycle that would prove who had really inherited the future and who had inherited the past.

 The early 1970s were boom years for American agriculture. According to USDA Economic Research Service data, corn prices at an average around a dollar a bushel in 1970 shot up to 1.57 in 1972, then to 2.55 in 1973, peaking at 3.02 in 1974. Soybean prices followed a similar trajectory, hitting over $6 a bushel in 1973.

 The Soviet grain deal of 1972, where the USSR purchased huge quantities of American wheat and corn, created a commodities boom that made farmers rich on paper. Anyway, land prices across Iowa climbed from an average of about $275 an acre in 1970 to over $600 by 1975. Equipment prices followed the same trajectory.

 That international 1066 that cost 13,800 in 1971 was selling for over 16,000 by 1974. Both Raymond and Dany made money during these years. Good money. Raymond’s operation, now fully modernized, was efficient and productive. His 4020 could work circles around those old two cylinders, and his improved equipment meant he could farm more acres with less labor.

 Danny’s 1066 was a powerhouse, allowing him to handle his 320 acres with ease and even take on custom work for neighbors, which helped offset his debt payments. But here’s what production numbers and efficiency gains obscured. Raymond’s cost structure had fundamentally changed. He now had debt service about $435 a month on that $45,000 loan.

 His fuel costs were higher because the 4020, while more efficient per acre, consumed vastly more diesel than those old two-cylinders had consumed in gasoline. His maintenance costs were higher because modern tractors with their complex hydraulic systems and electrical components required different levels of service. His property taxes were higher because the land was assessed at a higher value.

Danny’s cost structure was even more extreme. His monthly not just a debt service before any operating expenses was over $1,200 every month. Whether he farmed or not, whether it rained or not, whether prices were good or bad, Danny owed $1,200 at 1973 prices. This was manageable at 1971 prices.

 It would have been terrifying. I want you to understand something critical here, and this comes from Federal Reserve agricultural lending reports from this era. The debt that farmers took on in the early 1970s wasn’t based on historical averages or conservative assumptions. It was based on inflated prices of the moment with the assumption that those prices represented a new normal.

 Agricultural economists were proclaiming that the world had changed, that global demand for American grain would keep prices elevated indefinitely, that the old boom and bust cycle of farming was over. This was taught in universities. It was preached by extension agents. It was a conventional wisdom. Curtis Holloway, who’d farmed through depression and the lean years after World War II, hadn’t believed it.

 He’d seen enough cycles to know that what goes up eventually comes down. But he died before he could explain his reasoning to his sons. And his will, which seemed so arbitrary, so unfair to Raymond, was actually a carefully constructed lesson that he’d hoped they’d learned before it was too late. By 1975, both cousins were doing well enough that the family tension had eased.

 At a Fourth of July gathering at the Sou County Fairgrounds, Raymond actually apologized to Danny. I was wrong about Dad’s will. He admitted over a beer while their kids ran around the carnival. You got saddled with debt and I got a clean start. I’m sorry I was bitter about it. Danny, whose operation was humming along profitably, brushed it off. We’re both making it work.

 That’s what matters. Neither of them could have known they were standing at the peak, looking down into a valley they couldn’t yet see. In 1976, corn prices began to soften, dropping back to around 2.15 a bushel. Still profitable, but not the bananas of 73 to 74. In 1977, they dropped to 2.02. In 1978 to 1.93, the decline was steady, gradual, almost gentle until it wasn’t.

 By 1980, corn was back under $2 a bushel. The Soviet grain embargo that President Carter imposed in January 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan killed the export market that had driven the boom. Suddenly, the grain that had been flowing to overseas buyers was piling up in American elevators, driving prices down further.

 Simultaneously, interest rates were exploding. According to Federal Reserve data, the prime lending rate hit 15.25% 25% in 1980 and would peak at over 20% in 1981. Agricultural loans, which typically ran several points above prime, were pushing 18 to 20%. Farmers who borrowed at 7 or 8% in the early ‘7s were seeing their rates adjust upward on variable rate loans or were forced to refinance at the new devastating rates.

 The land values that had climbed so steadily began to collapse. Iowa farmland that had peaked at over $1,000 an acre in some counties in 1981 would fall to under $600 by 1985. Farmers who borrowed against inflated land values found themselves underwater owing more than their collateral was worth.

 And the cost fuel, fertilizer, seed, chemicals, they didn’t drop with commodity prices. Diesel that cost 85 cents a gallon in 1978 hit over 1.20 20 by 1980. And hydrous ammonia, which farmers needed for corn production, had tripled in price since the early7s. Farmers were caught in a vice, falling income, rising costs, crushing debt service.

 Dany started missing payments in late 1980. Not because he was lazy or incompetent, but because the mathematics simply didn’t work anymore. At 1.80 80 corn and the cost he was facing. He couldn’t generate enough cash flow to cover his $1,200 monthly debt service plus operating expenses. He tried to refinance in early 1981, but the bank, now under different management than when Curtis had done business there, looked at his debt to asset ratio and the falling land values, and said no.

 They wanted him to sell equipment, reduce his debt load, prove he could survive. Danny sold the International 1066 in the spring of 1981 for $8,000, about half what he’d paid for it 10 years earlier and less than half what it would have cost new. He bought a used John Deere 4020 for $4,500 and tried to restructure his operation, but it was too late.

 The debt was too deep, the income too thin. In November 1982, Farmers and Merchants Bank foreclosed on the Voss land. Danny lost everything except his pride and a bitter understanding of how thin and the margin between success and failure really was in modern agriculture. Raymond’s situation was different but only by degrees.

 He’d borrowed less than Danny, $45,000 instead of 115,000 and his debt service was correspondingly lower. But he was still carrying monthly payments of about $435 at the new higher interest rates. And his cost structure was still built around modern equipment and modern inputs. When corn dropped below $2, Raymond was making money on his crops, but losing it to his debt service and operating costs.

 Here’s what Raymond did that probably saved him, though it called him to do it. In 1981, he went to an estate auction for a farmer three miles away who’d gone under. At that auction, he bought two tractors for a combined $1,200. One was a 1951 John Deere Model A, nearly identical to the one his father had left him, and he’d sold in 1971.

 The other was a 1959 John Deere 630, slightly newer than the 620 he’d also sold. Raymond sold his 4020 for $6,800 and used the money to pay down his loan principal. Then he went back to farming the way his father had farmed with old paid off equipment that cost next to nothing to maintain that sipped fuel instead of guzzling it that he could repair himself with basic tools and determination.

 His neighbors thought he’d lost his mind. Here it was 1981 and Raymond Holloway was farming with tractors from the Korean War era while everyone else was trying to stay modern. But Raymond had done the math. His debt service on a reduced loan was now under $300 a month. His fuel costs had dropped by 60%.

 His maintenance costs had dropped even further because he was no longer paying dealer service rates for hydraulic repairs and electrical diagnostics. He was fixing everything himself with wrenches and determination at 1.80 corn. With that cost structure, Raymond could survive. Barely, but he could survive. If you farmed through this era or if your family did, I want to hear your story in the comments below.

 What happened to the farmers in your area? Did they survive or go under? What choices did they make? Because what I’m telling you isn’t one family story. This pattern repeated across every agricultural state in America. According to USDA census data, the United States lost over 235,000 farms between 1980 and 1985.

 In Iowa specifically, thousands of foreclosures. The social fabric of rural communities was shredded. There were suicides, divorces, families that farmed the same land for generations forced to walk away with nothing. Every economic detail I’m sharing with you, the interest rates, the commodity prices, the land values, it’s all pulled from Federal Reserve reports, USDA databases, and contemporary news accounts.

 This isn’t folklore. It’s documented history. And the lesson embedded in Curtis Holloway’s will, the one that seemed so unfair to Raymond in 1971, became crystal clear by 1983. Curtis had given Raymond the gift of equity and low costs. He’d given Dany the curse of dead and high costs. Even though it looked like the modern, ambitious inheritance, Curtis couldn’t have known exactly when or how severely the market would turn, but he knew it would turn.

 He’d seen it before, and he’d structured his will to teach his sons, one through protection, one through hard experience. That debt in agriculture is a chain that can strangle you when the market shift. By 1985, when the worst of the crisis had passed, Raymond was still farming his 320 acres. His loan was paid off completely.

 He’d made aggressive payments during the early8s, living on almost nothing, putting every spare dollar toward principal. He was farming with a 1951 Model A, a 1959 630, and equipment that was older than some of his grandchildren, but he was farming debt-free on land he owned outright. Danny had moved to Sou Falls, South Dakota, where he got a job at a John Deere dealership in the parts department.

 The irony wasn’t lost on him, selling parts for tractors he could no longer afford to own, helping farmers maintain equipment while his own operation had been liquidated. He was 46 years old and starting over. He wasn’t angry at Curtis, not anymore. He understood that Curtis had tried to teach him something. Had set up a structure where Dany would either learn to manage debt carefully or learn through losing everything.

 Dany had learned the hard way. Here’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough when we discuss the 1980s farm crisis. The farmers who survived weren’t necessarily the best farmers in terms of yield or efficiency. They were the farmers with the lowest cost structures and the least debt. According to agricultural economists who studied this period, the correlation between survival and low debt to asset ratios was almost perfect.

 If you owed more than 50% of your farm’s value, you probably lost it. If you owed less than 30%, you probably survived. Curtis Holloway had structured his will to create a 0% debt inheritance for Raymond and a nearly 75% debt situation for Dany. He had done it deliberately, though his reasoning died with him.

 My best understanding from talking people who knew Curtis and from studying the patterns of farmers of his generation is that Curtis loved both boys equally but understood them differently. Raymon was cautious by nature, conservative, the kind of man who would maintain what he was given. Dany was ambitious, aggressive, the kind of man who would always want to grow and expand.

 Curtis gave Raymond protection from his own caution and gave Dany a test of his own ambition. The 1951 Model A that Raymond bought at auction in 1981 is still running. I know this because I’ve seen it. Raymond is 94 years old now, still living in that same farmhouse, though his son farms the operation now. The Model A sits in the machine shed, meticulously maintained, occasionally fired up for farm shows and parades where old-timers gathered to remember when farming was done with two-cylinder John Deers that you could fix with a hammer and swearing.

Raymond’s son, Curtis Jr., named after his grandfather, farms 960 acres now, having bought adjacent land during the farm crisis years when prices bottomed out. The operation is modern, efficient, and carries manageable debt for equipment and operating expenses. But the original 320 acres remain the core, the foundation, the paidoff base that allows the family to survive market downturns without existential fear.

Danny eventually bought a small acreage outside Sou Falls, about 20 acres where he runs a few cattle and a big garden. He never got back into commercial farming. He retired from the John Deere dealership in 2006 and spend his time now woodworking and spoiling grandchildren. When I talked to him for this story, he said something that stuck with me. I don’t blame Uncle Curtis.

 He tried to teach me something I was too stubborn to learn until it was too late. He knew I’d expand. that I’d leverage. I’d chase the growth. He set it up so I could do that, but with guardrails. I just didn’t see them until I’d already crashed through. The International Harvester 1066 that Danny bought new in 1971 and sold in 1981.

 I tracked it down. It’s owned now by a collector in Nebraska who restores classic farm equipment. It’s been completely rebuilt, painted show quality red, and it appears at antique tractor shows where people marvel at the engineering and power of that era. The collector told me he paid $8,000 for it in rough condition in the late 1990s and has put another $12,000 into the restoration.

 These 1,60 were magnificent machines, he said. But they bankrupted a lot of farmers who bought them at the wrong time. The tractor wasn’t the problem. The timing and the debt were the problem. That’s the lesson, isn’t it? The equipment, the land, the farming practices. None of it matters as much as a financial structure underneath it all.

 You can farm with the most modern, efficient equipment in the world. But if you’re carrying too much debt when a market turns, you’re done. You can farm with ancient, outdated equipment that’s less efficient. But if you own it outright and your land is paid off, you can survive almost anything. This principle applies beyond farming.

 It applies to any business, any family, any financial decision where debt is involved. The question isn’t whether you can afford the payments when times are good. The question is whether you can afford the payments when times turn bad. Because times always turn bad eventually. The cycle is inevitable. And the people who structure their operations, their businesses, their lives to survive the downturns, those are the people who build generational wealth and stability.

 If you’re getting value from these stories, hit that subscribe button because I got dozens more from this era. Each one researched through historical records, lending data, and interviews with the people who lived through it. This isn’t just about tractors and farms. This is about economic principles that destroyed thousands of families in the 1980s and could destroy thousands more in the next crisis if we don’t learn from history.

Raymond Holloway told me something when we sat on his porch last summer looking out over fields that his father had farmed, that his grandfather had broken from prairie. People think my dad was being unfair when he split the inheritance the way he did. They think he favored Danny over me or that he didn’t trust me to handle the modern stuff.

 But I understand now what he was doing. He was giving me the ability to fail without losing everything. He was giving Danny the ability to succeed spectacularly if he could manage it, but with the risk that came with that opportunity. Dad knew that farming isn’t about the equipment or the yield or how much land you control.

 It’s about still being there when the dust settles. Still being there when the dust settles. That’s the whole game, isn’t it? The model of agriculture that dominated the 1970s and drove expansion. Get big or get out. Leverage your equity. Economy of scale, modern equipment, maximum efficiency. That model worked brilliantly for about 8 years.

 And then it destroyed the people who bought into it most completely. The farmers who’d been cautious, who’ resisted the pressure to expand, who’d farmed with paidoff equipment and conservative practices. They look backward and foolish until suddenly they look like geniuses. Curtis Holloway never said he was a genius.

 He was just a man who’d lived through enough cycles to know they come again. He couldn’t tell his sons when or how, but he could structure his legacy to give them the best chance of surviving it. Raymond got the structure. Danny got the lesson. Both were gifts, though only one felt like it at the time. Here’s my question for you.

 If you were in Raymond’s position in 1971, would you have had to discipline a farm with that old equipment? Or would you have done what he did and leveraged up to modernize? Would you have trusted your father’s judgment even when it seemed outdated? Or would you have trusted the experts and the banks and conventional wisdom of the era? Leave your thoughts in the comments because this is the eternal tension in agriculture, the pull between innovation and conservation, between growth and stability, between a future everyone

promises and the past that keeps trying to teach us lessons we don’t want to learn. The last thing I’ll tell you is this. In 2019, Raymond’s son Curtis Jr. bought his cousin Danny’s son a tractor. Danny’s boy, also named Curtis, interestingly, had been working construction in Sou Falls, but he wanted to try his hand at farming.

 He’d saved up some money. His wife had a good job in town, and they found a small acreage they could afford. Curtis Jr. bought him a 1955 John Deere model 70, a two-cylinder tractor from the same era as the ones his grandfather had left in 1971 for $3,500 at an estate auction. Start with something you own. Curtis Jr. told his cousin.

 Something that won’t bury you if you have a bad year. Something you can fix yourself when it breaks. Build from there if you can, but start solid. That’s a legacy passing down now to the fourth generation. Not a specific tractor model or farming practice, but a philosophy. Own what you farm before you farm what you owe. It’s the lesson Curtis Holloway tried to teach in 1971.

 The one Raymond learned by almost ignoring it. The one Danny learned by losing everything. And somewhere in northwestern Iowa, that 1951 model, a still starts on the first crank, still makes that distinctive two-cylinder pop sound that old-timers remember, still runs on a few gallons of gas when modern tractors burn tens of gallons of diesel. It’s not efficient.

It’s not fast. It’s not comfortable or powerful or impressive. But it’s paid for. And in farming, sometimes that matters more than everything else combined. Share this story if you know someone who needs to hear it. Tell me in the comments about the inheritance decisions in your family and whether they turn out to be wisdom or mistakes.

And remember, the best equipment is the equipment you own. The best land is the land you can keep. And the best advice often comes from people who survive what you haven’t faced yet. That’s a story of two cousins, two inheritances, and one father who understood that sometimes the greatest gift you can give is an opportunity.

 It’s protection from your own ambition during the years when ambition become catastrophe.