Elmo Mahoney

Elmo Mahoney was an American farmer, inventor and agricultural policy advocate from Russell County, Kansas, who spent his career working to improve farming techniques, influence farm policy and preserve the record of farming's own history. Born on a farm near Dorrance, Kansas in 1908, he invented the sickle head drive mechanism used in harvester combine headers, and he was active in farm organizations as president of the Russell County Farm Bureau Association, a director of the Kansas Wheat Growers Association and a charter member of the Kansas Flying Farmers. He served in the Kansas House of Representatives in 1949 and 1950 and later worked as a policy consultant for the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. A national authority on Avery farm equipment and an early preservationist of historic machinery, he became the first curator of the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame, which he helped establish, and was himself inducted into the Hall in 2021.