Saving the past

Museum a collection of farm artifacts and a witness for Jesus Christ

Saving the past for the future.

That single sentence has become a driving force in Bill Parrott’s life as he has spent the past 35 years collecting farm machinery from around the country and bringing it to his home in Lindale.

His first love and duty is to his Lord and savior Jesus Christ; then to his family and the rest of his time is devoted to a museum he built to house his passions, and also serve as a witness for his Redeemer.

The first thing most folks notice when they pass by his place along U.S. 69, just north of I-20 in Lindale, is the 22-foot waterwheel churning next to his main museum building.

Nothing in the museum happened overnight, as can be evidenced by the thought that went into making the wheel.

“I knew I wanted the wheel,” Parrott said. “Anybody, if they sit and think about something long enough can figure it out. Well, I thought about it and learned some things and did what I had to do.”

The massive wheel runs a lineshaft in the building. The waterwheel going full steam will turn at 12 revolutions per minute. To run some of his equipment inside such as grist and flour mills, Parrott has to turn those 12 RPMs into about 350 to 400 RPMs.

With a system of large and small pulleys, some he had to make himself, he was able to do it.

His collection is a testament to life in the early 20th century in this country. From hay lifts to stationary hit and miss engines to early tractors, Parrott has poured much of his life and his finances into collecting the items and then building a home for them for everyone to be able to see what those hard but hopeful days entailed.

Many of his items are extremely rare, such as his 1916 Galloway 16 horsepower hit and miss engine. A little research has shown there are six of those engines around today, and his is the only one known to still have its original wagon truck to haul around the 3,460-pound behemoth.

There are other items not seen much such as early chainsaws, a Rumley Oil Pull tractor, old sawmills, corn shellers, a shingle mill, an engine from the Civil War era and even a horse-drawn well drilling machine.

The first pieces he collected were more of an investment, Parrott noted, but it soon turned into something else.

“I don’t like to call it a labor of love,” Parrott said. “It’s more like a love affair. For 35 years I drove around in a truck and trailer, staying in motel rooms picking up what I could, it was something I felt needed to be done.”

Plans are in the works to build a working syrup mill on the grounds of the museum. After he built the museum he gave it to the City of Lindale, and now he is having to wait on the city to get the syrup mill built.

He also constructed a church on the museum grounds, a place where people can go for quiet reflection as they look across the lake to the main museum building.

Aside from the large waterwheel, the fire tower standing over 100 feet above the grounds garners a lot of attention.

Known as Big John, the tower has John 3:3 placed on top of it proclaiming the verse, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

At the top of the tower is a whistle, that sounds at 8 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.

“My prayer is that the Lord Jesus will make himself known to all who hear that whistle,” Parrott said. “I want everybody to know that in order to be saved, they must be born again.”

Not even cancer could stop him, in fact, he said the disease pushed him harder to make it happen.

“I wanted to see it finished,” Parrott admitted. “If I had died, I wouldn’t have gotten to see it finished.

“I like to say God gave me a little tuning and blessed me with a little more time and I praise Him for that.”

Of all the hundreds of pieces he has collected, reconstructed and built, there is still someplace special on the grounds Parrott holds dear. He will quickly admit there is a hole in his heart for all the children who have been killed as a result of abortion.

To honor those lives lost, more than 40 million since the passage of Roe vs. Wade, Parrott built a cemetery with crosses to remember the innocence lost.

He recalls a woman who stopped one time and went to the cemetery and broke down in tears because when she was younger she had an abortion performed on her.

She asked Parrott if she could place a cross there because she believed it would bring her closure. Sensing her pain Parrott said, “Placing that cross there won’t bring you closure, only Jesus Christ can do that.”

Still, he let her place a cross in the cemetery and she placed a green ribbon on the cross.

“She didn’t know if she was going to have a boy or girl, so she went with a neutral color,” Parrott said. “I haven’t seen her since, but I always keep a new ribbon on it.”

The Old Mill Museum is more than a personal collection of American farm artifacts, it serves as Parrott’s witness for Jesus Christ, and it serves as a testament to harder, but simpler times.

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