By Art Opp, Loveland, Colorado

I am also familiar with the term Header Box. When harvesting grain with a machine called a Header, this machine, pulled by 4 horses, would cut the grain and the canvas belt would carry the grain up into a Header Box that was driven along side of the header. When the header box was full the load would be taken and unloaded at a spot where it was decided to stack the grain in as many stacks as was needed for that field of grain. These stacks would be set in such a way that the threshing machine could be pulled up to the stacks so as to have the feeder between two of the stacks so that the men could pitch the grain into the feeder from both sides. These Header Boxes would have a high side and a low side. That was because the low side was needed so as to fit under the under the part of the Header that brought the cut grain up into the header box.

There would often be as many as six stacks, side by side, just far enough apart so the feeder of the threshing machine would fit between them. All they needed to do then was move the machine over to the next set of stacks and they were ready to continue threshing.

These Header Boxes of course were pulled by a team of horses. They were just like box used to haul hay except that one side was built lower than the other. In other words it would be slanted, a high side and a low side.

The header was often used when the grain was too short for the binder to make good bundles. That's where the name Header comes in. It cut less straw then was needed for binding to make bundles.