Grandpa Rick and Grandma Marlene pose by the company sign with grandkids Prezleigh, Ashtyn, Brookelyn and Kingston.
His son LeRoy took over after his death and later Alvera, Winifred, and their spouses came on board after the death of Louise in 1954. Tis family grew sod in Hanover Park, cutting the sod in widths of 6-1/4-inches, 8-inches, 16-inches and 18-inches, using Ryan cutters. Watering was done with 3-inch pipes and sprinklers, pulling water out of the DuPage River. Rolling the sod was done with 3-gang steel rollers and mowing was handled with a Worthington tractor with a 3-gang mower which William had bought for the 20-acre farm in Bensenville. At first, they used a wheelbarrow seeder to seed the bluegrass seed and later bought a Viking seeder. Tey used IH H and a M for ground preparation. (International Harvester’s Farmall H and M series tractors.)
Expanding Again In 1964, they began buying land for expansion in Huntley, IL. Winifred’s husband John went out to run the Huntley farm, which in 1970 grew to encompass 650 acres of sod. Tey had cemeteries, school districts, park districts, villages, golf courses, garden centers and landscapers as their customers. Te farm consisted of one-half mineral soil and one-half peat/muck soil. Production was ramped up to harvest up to 20,000 square yards of sod a day. Sod was harvested with Brouwer harvesters; grass was mowed with Roseman 11- and 13-gang mowers, and seed was sown with Brillion seeders. Irrigation was accomplished with ten one- quarter-mile long Wade Rain side-rolls. Sod was delivered on 38-foot Transcraft trailers with five semis and also with
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four straight trucks with flatbeds. Later on, Princeton and Spyder forklifts were added to unload the trucks.
In 1984, LeRoy sold his shares in the Mueller Farms Inc. to Alvera and her husband Nick and to Winifred and her husband John. In 1987, Winifred and John sold their shares to Alvera and Nick.
Coon Creek Sod Farms John and Winifred had a son, Rick. In 1970, after graduating Case Western Reserve University, he worked for Mueller Farms full-time. When Rick’s Mom and Dad decided to retire, Rick went out on his own and started Coon Creek Sod Farms in Hampshire, IL. Tat was in 1987. Tere he and his wife, Marlene, grew sod and expanded their acreage to also grow corn, soybeans and wheat. Since 1993, Rick and Marlene’s son, Rick, Jr., has worked on the family farm and, after one year at Whitewater-Wisconsin, came back to help his Dad on the farm full-time.
In 2014, Marlene and Rick, Sr. retired only to help their son, Rick, Jr. and his wife, Nicole, on the sod farm. Rick, Jr. has taken up the mantle and grows sod, corn and soybeans, and continues supplying the wholesale and retail trade with seed, fertilizer and erosion control products, like his Dad did. In 2017, Rick, Jr. added mulch to his list of products. He also added a Brouwer RoboMax harvester to ease the harvesting situations.
TPI Turf News September/October 2019
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