[inline_image file=”77d723cd0c7c196256aa7000c7b7ec9c.jpg” caption=”J.R. Simplot”]
About 10 years before he died in May 2008 at the age of 99, J.R. “Jack” Simplot bought 110 vintage tractors and rare steam engines in Montana for what he envisioned would be a museum in Boise that would instill in future generations the importance of Idaho’s agricultural roots and inspire them to succeed in applying the lessons and values of farming.
A high school dropout, Simplot—the oldest billionaire on the Forbes 400 when he died—got his start during the Great Depression when he accidentally discovered that fertilizer would grow bumper crops of potatoes. He turned that discovery into an international agribusiness empire with annual revenues of $6 billion built upon cattle ranching, fertilizer, French fries, mining, seeds and frozen food production.
Simplot Land & Livestock’s huge feedlot at Grand View, ID, about 50 miles south of Boise can corral about 110,000 head of livestock. The J.R. Simplot Co. has partnered with Caviness Beef Packers of Texas to create a $100 million, 400,000-square-foot CS Beef Packers plant at Kuna, ID, that has been operating since May 2017, processing 1,350 head a day and employing 650 workers.
Simplot’s life spanned a century that saw many stunning developments in which he was directly involved, pioneering different technologies that improved food processing, mining, manufacturing and reclamation that now are standards in the industry.
In addition to developing Idaho’s famous potato industry, he invested $20 million to launch and sustain Boise-based Micron Technology, the state’s largest private employer whose annual revenue stood at $20.3 billion in 2017, extending his reach from potato chips to microchips. He was responsible for employing literally thousands of Idahoans over his career of seven decades.
In 1998, Simplot attended a tractor and antique farm equipment auction in Billings, MT, at Oscar’s Dreamland, a patchwork of old buildings now called Oscar’s Park. Before he died in 1995 at the age of 94, Oscar Cooke spent 30 years collecting, restoring and displaying hundreds of antique tractors built from the late 1800s through the 1930s. He had amassed more than 500 tractors, up to 600 steam engines and more than 5,000 other antiques.
The auction was billed as the largest private tractor and steam engine sale in the world with nearly 6,000 people attending, including 2,000 registered bidders. Over three days, Simplot bought about 110 antique tractors, steam engines and other miscellaneous old farming equipment—or about half the tractors. The auction became an international sensation, drawing as many as 2,500 bidders from 17 countries and netting about $4.4 million in sales.
[inline_image file=”afb72a29882b222638abcdfa03b920a0.jpg” caption=”An antique tractor on display at Jack’s Urban Meeting Place in downtown Boise, ID.”]
After Simplot’s death, his family members were not sure what to do with the unique collection of antique farm machinery that he left behind as a legacy. What he anticipated would be an agriculture museum, which now has morphed into a $70-million, five-story, 65,000-square-foot complex on 7.5 acres in downtown Boise called Jack’s Urban Meeting Place or “JUMP.”
Opening in December 2015, it’s next to the J.R. Simplot Co.’s impressive new nine-story headquarters that centralizes 800 employees in one location, giving the Simplot corporation a dominating presence in downtown Boise. A massive excavation project was needed to provide underground parking before work could start on JUMP or Simplot’s 265,000-square-foot headquarters.
Members of the nonprofit Simplot Family Foundation decided against merely constructing an under-used tractor museum. Instead, they expanded the concept to become a very non-traditional lively community space where the equipment could be appreciated for more than its history, but also for inspiring works of human ingenuity.
In effect, they aligned it with the Simplot corporation’s motto, “Bringing earth’s resources to life.” Family members strove to create “an environment for inspiring human potential” that would provoke visitors to capture Jack Simplot’s entrepreneurial, risk-taking approach, JUMP Community Engagement Director Kathy O’Neill told the Western Livestock Journal. O’Neill is one of nearly 30 employees onsite.
[inline_image file=”8975b2aef125dde1b4d3de005e61db98.jpg” caption=”An antique tractor on display at Jack’s Urban Meeting Place in downtown Boise, ID.”]
JUMP’s “ecosystem” includes a landscaped three-acre public park connected to high speed Wi-Fi; sweeping terraces; a five-story slide; a climbing structure; rooftop parks; meeting, dance and play spaces, and an outdoor amphitheater with large multimedia flat screens. It also provides five different activity studios stocked with audio and video equipment to record albums or make movies, an industrial-grade kitchen, a carpentry area with tools and a 3-D printer to encourage creativity.
The old farm equipment is strategically dispersed throughout the complex, including the underground parking garage. Some of the huge machinery had to be lowered in place by cranes, and some have had glass enclosures with roofs built around them to protect the priceless, old farm gear from harmful elements because they are too heavy to rotate to other locations.
O’Neill said family members traveled extensively before the project actually got underway after Simplot’s death to research how best to fulfill the corporate patriarch’s dream and settled on the JUMP concept so that the valuable tractors and steam engines would positively touch people’s lives beyond just being on display. Some are arranged by age, and others by type. One section even exhibits different types of wheels.
“A lot of them are one-of-a-kind incredible pieces of agriculture equipment. They inspire people on how agriculture and farming techniques used to be done, and how people can continue to be resourceful and innovative to meet future needs,” she said, stressing the public is invited to take tours. “It can help people discover new and unique talents they might have.”
JUMP remains a pulsating work in progress with orange barricades recently removed, freeing up more space. “A project of this scale takes time. We want to make sure everything is done correctly,” O’Neill said. “The momentum will just continue to grow.” — Mark Mendiola, WLJ correspondent
