On the Trail with Troy and Marie by Troy Cunningham, Vice President WorldWide Drilling Resource® As we traveled across our wonderful country on this 250-year anniversary, we came across “Little Village Farm” on a country back road in Dell Rapids, South Dakota. As you crest the rolling hills, you begin to see the white cupolas, with their weather vanes high atop. There is a round barn designed especially for chickens. This lowroof barn had a small chicken door to allow the hens to go out after a safe night’s rest, to the green grass and trees to forage for their daily bugs and greens. This little barn is stuffed with every chicken- and farm-related item needed to make a chicken operation successful. From your ten-hole nesting box and semiautomatic incubator, to the chicken and egg box making machine. Don’t forget, the eggs had to be sized, so you need an egg scale before you can sell those eggs. There was another round barn which dwarfed the little chicken barn. This barn was an old sale barn for hogs. You can imagine coming to this red lap siding barn with its cedar shake shingles on a cool Saturday morning for the monthly sale. Once you enter, you look up and there are skylights. These aren’t your typical skylights, no! These “windows” had individual pull chains to allow you to open and close them to adjust the natural air conditioning and heat back in the day. There were also benches hanging from the ceiling in the same round shape as the barn. This way, you could see the hogs you were bidding on. The animals would move in smooth formation through the barn, in one door, around the barn for everyone to take a gander at, and out the other door. No issues with corners. If you have ever worked livestock in a square sale barn, you have had the typical hardheaded or confused animal get stuck in the corner. With a round barn, there are no corners to get stuck in. The hogs and benches have been replaced with tractors of all makes and years, you have your red ones and orange ones - Massey Harris, Allis-Chalmers, and yes, the green ones - Case, Oliver, and John Deere. There was even a B.F. Avery with a hand crank sticking out just above the single front wheel. Plastered on the walls were all types of advertising metal signs, and as you look up the walls, you come to the edge of the roof, there started the thousands of ball caps. If you had a product, you had to advertise; the best way was to get it in the hands of the end user. The man who started this little village had a dream as a young boy working beside his father taking down buildings and rebuilding them, or salvaging what they could. He came across a little train engine buried beneath the floorboards, covered in dirt and filth. The little boy didn’t care; he saw a treasure and looked beyond what it was and saw what it could be. This would end up being the start of his dream. This little boy grew up to be a husband, dad, businessman (well drilling business), grandfather, Volunteer Fire Chief, and oh yeah, let’s not forget museum owner. This Little Village Farm is amazing to see and soaked in history. Looking into the past and thinking what it was like to live back then, while your kids are imagining what it would be like to ride on the tractors in the dirt all day, play with the chickens and collect the eggs for granny to make those famous fresh vittles for the weekly farmers’ market and livestock sale. You will get the stories told to you by the man and his family who made this dream come true. Stop by and visit and do as the sign says, “Come Up to The House or Call”. They will be there waiting on the front porch to take you into the past. WTR 21 JULY 2026 WorldWide Drilling Resource®
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