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J.C. Green, a native of the Lakeway Area, has preserved antique tractor seats and tools going back a hundred years.

Green who is a Marine, served in the Vietnam War. He was drafted in 1965, and by Christmas Eve, 1966 he was boots on the ground in Vietnam. He served for two years.

“I couldn’t have stayed much longer because if I did I would have died, I wanted to but my dad had passed away and so I had to come back to the states,” Green said.

With over 700 collected tractor seats, each piece tells its own story of how farmers spent hours in the fields tending to their crops.

“These are some things that should be remembered,” Green said. “It’s important to keep our history alive to be able to tell the younger generations.”

“We cannot let them forget about the manual labor and hard work that this country was built on,” he added.

Green helps preserve the history with his two barns full of old farming equipment, but mostly cast iron seats.

“We have all kinds of seats with different colors and from all over the country and we even have a few from England, which is really cool,” he said.

The barn walls are lined with seats and while giving a tour, Green explained a brief history of the different types and the reasoning for the holes that many of them have.

“Originally the seats were soft and cushioned, but when it rained, water kept getting in the seats and during the winter time the seats would freeze and burst so they started adding holes in the seats,” he said. “It also helped a nice breeze to come through when they were working in the heat all day.”

In Green’s collection is a set of seats that could only be found at the Cast Iron Seat Convention, the first held in 1973.

“So the history behind theses seats is the convention had made four seats, but the man who built them had passed away and the convention decided not to find anyone to replace him. Luckily we were able to get our hands on all four of them,” he said.

Throughout the barn, Green has old farming tools such as a hog oiler or a fifty gallon crock on display.

“So when hogs got lice, farmers would fill this thing up with oil and the hogs would rub against it and as it spun the oil would get on them and kill the lice,” he said.

“You don’t see many crocks of this size, but that make them a lot bigger,” Green said. “I found a hundred gallon crock in Ohio a couple of months ago and I said if you deliver it I’ll take and he said no because if you hit a bump or a railroad track it would burst.”

Although his barns are full of antique farming equipment, he also has antique license plates spread throughout.

“I collect license plates spanning generations,” Green said. “I have plates from each year my kids were born and even when I was born.”

Green also has an original license plate the State of Tennessee first issued to residents in 1915.

“Before 1915, residents would have to make their own plates, but in 1915 the state started to issue plates to drivers and I have an original one from when that happened.”

Looking around the room there are plates from each year following 1915 with only a few missing dates here and there.

However, Green doesn’t just use plates to preserve them. Some of the newer plates he has received have been turned into art décor.

Green cuts out letters and numbers of the plates and bolts them to a wood backing spelling out names or titles such as “Girlboss” or “Mancave.”

Green’s latest project was to create a life size silhouette of the shape of the State of Tennessee, including license plates from each county.

“I took me around four months to finally complete the project,” Green said.

“The hardest part was trying to get plates from the different counties.”

He had to call each county to request plates to be featured in the art piece, but some counties made it difficult.

“Some counties really helped me out and sent the plates with no hassle and other ones said they couldn’t send me a plate,” Green said.

“There was a specific county that told me it was illegal to send plates like that, but when I told another county, he laughed and said ‘Well I guess we’re both going to jail.’”

After finally receiving all the plates needed for the project Green went to work, cutting each plate into pieces like a puzzle to fit in the shape of the state.

Once he finished, he hung the state project up on his barn for anyone passing by to admire.

He also sent Christmas cards with the pictures of the finalized project to all of the counties who helped. The ones who didn’t got a lump of coal.

Green continues to create smaller pieces out of plates, but doubts he’ll take on another project similar to the State of Tennessee one.

“Someone asked me to do one for them and I said I would if they collected all the plates themselves because I will not be doing that again,” he said.