Whitney Businesses

This is an undated photograph of the Farmers and Drovers State back that sat at the corner of Division and Missouri Streets where the old bank vault has stood alone for so many years. Thanks to Vern and Sharon Mizner for sharing this photograph. Click on the image to get a closer view of these gents -- and the building. Notice the utility line that attaches to the upper corner of the building. We are told that the telephone switchboard was once located in the upstairs of the bank, so perhaps it's a telephone trunk line; however, it may well be a power line. A water hydrant and fire plug appear to be in front of these three unidentified gentlemen.

Site of the old "Baldwin Iron Works" in Whitney, Nebraska

Artist Kit Watson of Chadron sketched this excellent likeness of the old Baldwin Ironworks building in Whitney. It is among the more than 150 images in her latest book, Pine Ridge Sketches. Our thanks to Kit for her generosity in allowing us to use some of her great work on this site. "Like a proud woman, this old building retains a certain sense of romance even as she ages. She was built in the late 1920's by T. L. Holding and in the 1940's Curtis Baldwin successfully manufactured grain augers here. Over the years the rambling structure found her purpose in Whitney as a lumberyard and as a supply center for grain, feed, salt and coal."

The "Curtis" combine - Manufactured in 1930

The large Waukesha engine was one of the more obvious features of the 1930 Curtis Combine, designed and built by Curtis Baldwin. The implement was created by Baldwin many years before he found his way to Dawes County Nebraska and manufactured augers at a facility in Whitney. There apparently are still a few of these machines in existence. This is a photo of one owned by Gilbert Vust, a Canadian who collects old farm implements -- particularly Allis-Chalmers, which bought out Baldwin's Gleaner Harvester Corp. many years ago, according to writer Tharran Gaines.