CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Not all heroes wear capes.
That's what the internet says, anyway, and it's a rare person who will disagree.
Historians and museum curators likely would count Larry Fulton of Cheyenne as a hero.
Fulton rescues old farm equipment from the salvage heaps and fixes them up. Some of his "patients" date as far back as the 19th century.
"My thrill in life is to find a tractor that's complete, that's been sitting in a tree row for 50-60 years, and bring it back to life," he said.
His 21-year-old granddaughter, Erin Fulton, who helps with his various projects, said, "He could fix anything. He's a genius."
She is right, it's not just tractors. Fulton fixed up two towering rope water well drills. Based on the features of the drills, he dated his first one at about 1870 and his second about 1880.
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He estimated the date of the first one, which he received in 2013, based on built-in oil trays, a single drum and a 15-foot derrick, among other features.
"All of this pushes it before 1880," Fulton said.
That same drill has wheel protection strips that he had to move to accommodate the steel wheels that were on its wagon when it came to him. The strips' original placing indicated the driller originally had wooden-spoke wheels. "In 1890 is when the steel wheels on the wagons became common," he said.
"There's a lot of these old water well drills and stuff around, but they've never been restored. People have got them, but these two are actually the only two functioning ones that I know of in existence," Fulton said. "I do a lot of looking through the internet, trying different ways - asked for percussion drilling, rope drilling and stuff like that."
Fulton said he's found a lot of similar ones, but none exactly like his. "A lot of them have the big walking beam arms on top or a clutch-type - all different functions of getting the rope to go up and down. But these are the only two that I'm aware of that actually have the freefall."
Much of Fulton's restoration work is focused on tractors. He said his favorite piece is a reddish 1940 Cletrac crop tractor that he paid a scrap metal price for. He adhered rubber blocks to the tractor's treads in order to ride it in street parades.
Fulton said he will have that Cletrac, a green Oliver tractor and an old-fashioned kitchen sink pump at Superday on Saturday, June 25, but he won't be able to bring his water well drills.
But he said he will have at least one of those at the Laramie County Fair Aug. 1-13.
Fulton has more than water well drills and tractors on his property too. In addition to the kitchen pump, he has a water pump from the Civil War era, old washing machine motors that had to be run by hand or foot pedal, and a rusted International pickup truck from about 1937-1940.
The truck has rotted out tires with spoke rims and a rusted 1948 license plate on which you can still make out a 31. "My brother-in-law up there in Shoshoni had what they call the KB series of International trucks, and he was storing all of them. He had all of his restored trucks in a Quonset hut along with a farm loader. The alternator shorted out on the loader and burned the building down and ruined all of his trucks," Fulton said.
"They just took them out of the building and just parked them along a ditch that they call a tree row. So they were just sitting there, and somehow this pickup appeared in that lineup. No one knows where it came from. They don't know if he bought it at an auction or if it was given to him."
Fulton said that his family gave him the truck to restore because he'd been looking for an International pickup truck. He'd had one years ago when he was young.
Adding to the rarities at Fulton's workshop is a huge wrench circle that was used for 20- to 24-inch diameter bits, and had to be used by laying it on the ground. Fulton said when he found it he didn't know what it was at first. It's the only one he's ever seen, he said, and he bought it specifically to be donated to a museum at some point.
Fulton, who is the vice president of the Centennial Antique Tractor and Engine Club, hopes many of his restored projects will benefit future generations.
"I think when I'm gone and dead, you know, what's gonna happen to this? And I just hope some of this stuff will wind up in museums. That's what I would like to see," he said.
