Will Otwell's Farmer Boys, Illinois 1905
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Otwell's Farmer Boys national roundup of corn growing contestants in 1905 in Carlinville, Illinois may not have been the first organized national event for farm boys and girls, but it perhaps was the most significant one to date.
After several years of setbacks starting in 1898, Will B. Otwell, a local nurseryman, finally realized his dream. Always "raising the bar," in 1905 Otwell invited farm youth anywhere in the country to Carlinville, Illinois, for a national roundup of corn growing contestants in his home town. Before this, he had held county roundups, but this one would include farm youngsters from anywhere in the United States.
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Otwell broadcast his invitation, instructing his followers that they were to parade on horseback, the boys to wear a blue sash of crepe paper hanging from the shoulder, the girls to wear a sash of gold.
The results were astonishing; families migrated to Carlinville from 40 counties in eight states, their saddle horses hitched to their buggies. When the parade was formed, Otwell recalls in an interview with E. I. Pilchard, Illinois Extension, in 1927, that it measured four miles in length, four horsemen abreast.
Mounted on a black charger, Otwell led the Boys' Horseback Brigade past the reviewing stand. There proudly stood Illinois Governor Richard Yates. Along side Yates was former Vice President of the United States, Adlai Stevenson, watching as young men and women from near and far paraded past the reviewing stand. Vice President Stevenson, with tears in his eyes, said it was the most inspiring sight he had ever seen.
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Otwell's contests were not club work. He formed no local groups and required no regular meetings. He did, however, help create wide interest in better seed corn. Most important of all, from the standpoint of the future 4-H movement, he proved how wholeheartedly the hitherto neglected farm boy would respond to public recognition and encouragement.
The complete Will Otwell Farmer Boys story is on the 4-H history website at:
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