[Kohlsdorf] Elkader is home to the Earthmoving Legacy Center, an innovative museum telling the story of early machinery and how it shaped our country.

Let's check it out.

♪♪ ♪♪ [Kohlsdorf] All right, we're here at the Earthmoving Legacy Center with Justin.

Tell us a little bit, Justin, about your role here.

And what is this place?

It's massive.

(laughs) [Justin Augustyn] Well, I'm the Vice President of CJ Moyna & Sons.

We're a civil contractor.

We work across the Midwest and Florida.

And this is kind of our hobby, if you would say.

We get down on old equipment, everything that has really come before us, all the operators and what they had to do and work with.

So really, Brooke, what we have here is the lineage of Caterpillar's product line and it starts with two different companies.

The Best Tractor Company and the Holt Manufacturing Company.

And it was a fierce competition that they had in California.

Ultimately, both businesses found themselves merging in 1925.

♪♪ [Justin Augustyn] Okay, so here we are in 1925, the two businesses become one and this is the new world of Caterpillar.

[Kohlsdorf] Okay, we've got one over here.

This looks like one of the originals.

[Justin Augustyn] Yeah, this is the Cat 15 right here.

This is very common within the agricultural world.

15 horsepower.

And this machine right here is really special.

And if anyone comes to visit, they're going to want to check this machine out.

Do you have any idea why?

[Kohlsdorf] Okay, tell me more!

[Justin Augustyn] All right, well this is really special.

It's a very lucky machine, okay, because it's serial number one, the first one ever built is right here.

We had to search high and low across the United States to find it.

So, the rumor is if you touch it just like that you'll get three years of good luck.

[Kohlsdorf] Okay.

[Justin Augustyn] All the reason to come visit.

[Kohlsdorf] That's right, we all need a little more luck.

All right, Justin, I'm noticing with some of these old original Caterpillar models, they're not yellow.

What's the story with this?

[Justin Augustyn] Yeah, well as the business was just getting started, they were doing anything and everything to pay attention to cost savings.

And it just so happened for them there was a bunch of surplus naval ship gray paint on the market and that is what you see right here is naval ship gray.

And it wasn't until 1931 they changed over to their infamous highway safety yellow.

♪♪ [Justin Augustyn] Brooke, no visit would be complete without stopping by and checking out the diesel 65.

This is John Moyna's most favorite machine.

John is the man behind the whole Earthmoving Legacy Center.

And this machine is so cool because, number one, it was one of Caterpillar's biggest decisions during the '30s.

And the Great Depression was going on during that time and they were looking for something to separate themselves.

And they found their answer in diesel fuel.

Diesel was about half the cost of gasoline during this time and they introduced the diesel 65 in 1931 and they only built 155 because they had some technical challenges.

But they stuck with it.

Before the end of the '30s, they had it perfected and by the time FDR introduced the New Deal they were in the right place for success and no one could ever stop them.

[Kohlsdorf] What is the mission of this place?

[Justin Augustyn] Well, really our mission is to go and travel the United States and even the world and find the pieces that we can get and restore them and line them up to a point where we can help tell the story.

This is a wonderful example of the story.

It's the evolution of what is today's D8 tractor.

So, if you want to think of it like a family tree, the diesel 65 would be the great-great-great-great-gr andfather of today's D8.

And if you're here walking through you can see how the undercarriage changes, the engines change, it's all the incremental improvements.

So, the machines of today are built on the backs of all of these machines.

And more importantly, the people behind the business that have worked tirelessly to make it better and better and better.

[Kohlsdorf] Justin, seeing all of these machines and hearing their stories kind of makes me wonder what it would be like to operate one of them?

[Justin Augustyn] I think we can put something together.

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