Dump Rake - Douglas, WA
Posted by: 
T0SHEA
N 47° 37.263 W 120° 00.239
10T E 725112 N 5278531
Don't pass through the tiny hamlet of Douglas, WA too quickly or you'll miss all it has to offer.
Waymark Code: WM100HE
Location: Washington, United States
Date Posted: 02/02/2019
Views: 2
Mostly, what it has to offer is an RV Park, a General Store, a historic church, some old agricultural equipment, a Seagate Pumper/Tanker and a vintage visible gas pump. This collection of machines and machinery stands along the north side of Highway 2, just east of the General Store. One of the agricultural implements is this dump rake. Judging by its construction it was an early one but, unless it has been modified, it was intended to be pulled by a tractor, not "horse power", making hay raking a two person operation.
This rake represented the type of advancement in farm machinery that saved the farmer many hours of laborious raking and hay gathering. Dump rakes were given the name because they gathered the tines full of hay as the rake was pulled along the ground then, when the operator stepped on a release pedal, ground power lifted the tines and dumped the collected hay. This made picking up the hay quicker than walking all over the field and picking it up directly off the ground.
The rake could be used to simply drag the hay into piles, to be later forked onto wagons for the haul to the hay loft, etc., or it could create windrows by dragging hay perpendicular to the windrow, back and forth across the field, then dumping at the windrow. Either way it was very much labour intensive.
No maker's mark was found on the rake, so the manufacturer will remain unknown.
