Old Hartford: Spectacular Historic Sheds Found in Shop's Ceiling

I have farmed my entire life with my father, Otis George, near Oregon, Missouri. Our farm ground is in hilly terrain, with lots of timber and creeks surrounding the fields. Farming in the 1980s was a very hard endeavor, with low rainfall and low crop yields. Profits were slim. Even with the hard financial times, one enjoyment we had while working the farm was the viewing of abundant wildlife. We did not hunt but liked to watch the deer and game birds.

In the spring of 1987, my dad came home one evening from discing a field just south of town. He told me he saw the largest buck he’d ever seen. Nothing more was said, and the subject was forgotten. That fall I was harvesting corn in the same field, and when I came around a patch of timber by the creek, I saw something white move in the dense brush. It was a set of antlers on a huge deer, hidden in the brush and trees. I stopped the combine for a closer look, but he was gone. We mentioned the deer to several friends at the local coffee shop, and it was easy to see that they were skeptical about our story. We didn’t see the buck for the rest of the year.

In the summer of 1988, I was cultivating soybeans in the same field, and the buck was lying in a large erosion ditch where switchgrass was growing. He was well hidden, as the grass was over three feet tall, and his antlers were still in velvet. Having learned not to stop the farm equipment, I slowed down to an idle and he never moved. I told Dad that evening, and he was glad the deer survived the last hunting season. We decided to tell no one, knowing full well they would not believe us anyway!

We saw the buck again in October, and in mid-November my father was discing when the buck returned to the patch of switchgrass. Dad drove the tractor to the top of the hill and got in his pickup. He drove to the coffee shop, where he found a couple of his good friends, Larry Scroggins and Bernie Delaney, both avid hunters. He drove them to see the deer since both were skeptical of its size. Dad drove to the edge of the grass a short distance from the animal. All they could see were the buck’s antlers, and Larry was the first to comment. Dad said he repeated, “unbelievable” several times. Bernie said he looked like a deer on a Hartford TV commercial.

They drove a little closer, and after a couple minutes Bernie asked to be taken back to his truck to get his gun and unfilled deer tag. Dad declined and the two men had a tense exchange. Ultimately, the giant buck was safe!

During winter, we turned our cattle into the same area frequented by the “Hartford” deer. While checking the cattle in March of 1989, my father made an unusual find. He came walking into our farm shop with a huge antler; he said, “Look at that!”

It must have been from the big deer, because it was way bigger than others we’d stumbled onto. We counted the tines (or prongs, as Dad called them), and came up with 16. Dad placed the antler on the work bench, and we went back to work. Over the next few days, several friends stopped by, and everyone was shocked by the size of the antler. My father enjoyed telling the entire story many times over.

After a week had passed, Dad’s cousin, Herschel Hughes, came by. He looked the antler over, and to our surprise, said nothing. As he was leaving, he said, “Otie, you better get rid of that antler!” When my father asked why, Herschel explained that some people would go crazy over a deer that big! When we quit work that evening, my dad said that the antler would be gone the next day. I knew he would throw it away because it was only a novelty to him. When I asked him to save it, he said he would, but he would put it where it would never be seen again. The next morning, it was gone. When I inquired about its location, I was told that he was the only one who needed to know. I felt sure it had been thrown away.

May arrived, and the only thing my father hunted came into season — mushrooms. One of his “hot spots” was the same timber where he’d found the giant antler. After hunting morels one damp afternoon, he returned to the shop, and told me to go down to our south fence at the end of the timber. Dad said another of the antlers was stuck in a tree near the Weis farm.

The huge antler was wedged in the fork of a small sycamore tree, about three feet off the ground. After wiggling it a little bit, I got the antler to come loose. This one looked a little different than the one Dad had found first. It had a drop tine!

We knew this came from the same deer as the first shed Dad had found. It was the same size, but a lot more unusual in shape. Old Hartford was antlerless again! When we returned home, my father said to leave the antler in the truck, and he would take care of it. He asked me to tell no one about the find, to which I agreed. As with the first antler, this one was gone the next morning, and I was never told where they were hidden.

The next year word had gotten out about Old Hartford. People would drive down the country road past our farm to try to get a glimpse of him. Dad and I each saw him in spring while planting. He was seen twice in the summer by Dwight Hall, our neighbor to the west. We farmed Dwight’s ground, and since the two farms joined, he had hoped to see the deer. He had seen the first antler and was thrilled to finally see the actual creature. My cousin, Terry Price, got a chance to see him in his switchgrass hideout, but could only see the huge rack of antlers he was sporting.

My dad saw him again in early December, so he had survived the rifle season for 1990. We didn’t know it at the time, but that was the last time we’d see the magnificent buck. No one reported seeing him after that winter, so we assumed he left the area or died of old age. We knew we would’ve heard if someone had shot the deer. I never thought much about the hidden antlers, unless I would happen to hear a hunter talk about a nice buck he had seen or shot. Dad and I rarely mentioned them.

Fast forward eight years, and my wife, Beverly, and I had raised two daughters in a very small house. We discarded a lot of unneeded baby items, but we wanted to save a rocking horse and crib because of the memories. I knew they would be destroyed if I put them in one of our barns, so I came up with a great idea: I would put them on top of the false ceiling in our shop!

The ceiling was made from sheets of particleboard, and it worked well to keep the heat in the lower part of the building for our winter work. I propped a sheet of the false ceiling up with a board to access the open roof area. I carried the two baby items up the ladder and laid them on a 2x4, which supported the particleboard sheets. As I looked to my left while going back down the ladder, I saw the antlers!

The next morning, when my father came into the shop, I told him I knew where the antlers were. He replied, “No, you don’t.” So I pointed to the ceiling. Dad wanted to know why I was looking up there, and I told him about my storage venture. He asked me to leave the antlers there, as he felt they were his and that’s what he wanted. I agreed. The shop eventually became a storage building. The ceiling began to crumble and fall to the floor in a few places. The years of diesel smoke and a leaky roof were taking their toll on the particleboard.

My dad died in 2015, and we never took the time to discuss the antlers again. In his mind, it was as though they had never existed. The ceiling continued to decay, and more and more holes began to show. One morning, a large ceiling section was on the floor, and as I looked up at the gaping hole, I could see the antlers.

I had kept my promise to my dad about not touching the antlers for a very long time. Even though he was no longer with me, I vowed to keep my word. I told myself that if the antlers fell down, they were so hard they would probably bounce and not break.

My wife and I currently live in a home we built on a high ridge. When we look out our dining room window, we are looking directly at the timber and creek where Old Hartford frequented over 30 years ago. About a mile or so away, Monty and Lisa Scroggins reside. Monty is the son of Larry Scroggins, one of the men my dad first took to see the huge deer in the switchgrass. Monty is an avid hunter and is very knowledgeable about whitetail deer.

One morning while visiting with Lisa, I asked her if she thought a deer antler would break if it fell on a concrete floor. She thought it probably could and asked why I wanted to know, so I told her a condensed version of this story. Lisa said if she owned some antlers piled on a particleboard ceiling, her biggest worry would be how many mice had chewed on them in the last 30 years. And I had never given mice a thought! After we hung up, I got a stepladder and went up to where I could see the antlers. To get the best view, I would have to stand on the very top of the ladder. At 67 years old, I quickly decided it wasn’t worth the risk of falling.

A few days later, Phil Sommer, another good friend, stopped by the shop. I told him about my conversation with Lisa, and an even more condensed version of the history of the antlers. He offered to look them over if I would hold the ladder steady. I requested that he not try to touch them, as I was still trying not to go against my late father’s wishes. The first word out of his mouth when he saw the antlers was, “Wow!” He looked for several minutes then came back down the ladder. Phil said he could see no signs of mouse damage, and he had never seen a bigger set of antlers from this area in all his years farming.

A few days later, Monty Scroggins stopped by the shop to visit after getting home from work. I had asked Lisa to say nothing to anyone about our discussion concerning the antlers, and it was obvious she had kept her word, because Monty never mentioned them. When he said he had to head for home, I told him the entire story about Old Hartford. I then pointed to the antler pile barely visible on the false ceiling.

While I held the stepladder, he climbed to the top and looked the two sheds over for a very long time. Monty said the combination of the story and the antlers’ size was a one-of-a-kind thing. He said when he was a young boy, he and his father would frequently travel south of town to go fishing or take the long way to their home. When they passed the switchgrass ditch on our farm, Larry would point it out and repeat the tale about my father taking him and Bernie to see the huge whitetail. Monty told me he would be happy to help if I ever wanted to get the antlers down, as he felt certain they would break if they fell.

I thought about the antlers often over the next several days. I knew it would be hard to open the shop door some morning and find pieces of deer antler all over the cement floor. I decided to bring them down, and I felt sure my father would understand.

On May 31, 2021, Monty and Lisa came to the shop in the evening while I was doing cattle chores. Lisa said she could tell this was going to be hard for me, and I said I was having some mixed emotions. Monty picked the sheds up one at a time and handed them down to me. Lisa recorded the event on her phone, as we all knew it was the end of an era. For the first time since 1989, I was holding the antlers of Old Hartford! Thirty-two years had passed, and they were just as solid as they were when Dad found them. Monty took the sheds and cleaned the mud off, pointing out things I would never have noticed on my own — strings of velvet in the main beams, damage and wear from getting hung up in a tree limb, and cuts from barbwire. He measured and scored them at 142 and 116, respectively.

The measurements and numbers my friends put on the old antlers mean very little to me, as I have no understanding of the importance of them. I guess I am a little like my father was in 1988, when Bernie wanted to harvest the huge whitetail. I truly believe that Old Hartford walked into our lives for a few years to give us great pleasure and appreciation for God’s wildlife. I am blessed to now pick up the shed antlers and go back in my mind over three decades to mentally relive those wonderful days!

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