Today, a business promotion might involve a video or a hashtag. In the 1940s and ’50s, Behlen Manufacturing suspended tractors from its plant's ceiling and tested its buildings with an atomic bomb.

Behlen Manufacturing, whose headquarters is in Columbus, celebrated its 80th anniversary in June. The company's huge contributions to the agriculture industry, the Columbus community and science in general are noteworthy, but founder Walt Behlen's sense of showmanship coupled with his mechanical genius create one of Nebraska's better stories.

FEATS OF STRENGTH: To showcase the strength of a new addition to its plant in 1950, Behlen hung 16 International Harvester Model M tractors from the roof ridge member. (Photo: Behlen Manufacturing)

Behlen grew up the second oldest of nine children on a farm 10 miles north of Columbus. He occupied his time raising skunks, experimenting with explosives, salvaging and rebuilding motorcycles, and creating a contraption he and his brothers called "The Crow Canon."

Behlen also saw how mechanical improvements could save farmers time and money. He spent all his spare time working on numerous inventions in his family's garage. After a failed venture into manufacturing corn-husking hooks (mechanization made them obsolete), Behlen and his father and brothers, who joined him in business, were successful making steel boot toe covers and metal clamps for fastening egg crates.

According to the biography “Walt Behlen’s Universe” by William McDaniel, Behlen's devotion to his work spilled over into his love life. When he started dating his future wife, Ruby Cumming, he sent one of his sisters to make the 40-mile trip to Fremont to pick up Cumming so he could spend another hour in his shop. McDaniel writes that Behlen later said, "Ruby soon broke me of that." He and Cumming married on April 13, 1940.

GO ORANGE: In 1955, Walt Behlen built two buildings at the Yucca Flat Atomic Energy Commission test site in Nevada. On May 5, 1955, a 30-kiloton atomic bomb was tested there. His buildings remained standing and are still usable. One building, which now stands next to the factory in Columbus, is painted “atomic orange.”

Around 1943, Behlen invented a grain dryer for corn cribs and launched the business out of his family's garage. Another noteworthy Behlen invention was a bolt-on auxiliary gear drive that increased a tractor's maximum road speed. One design malfunctioned and cracked tractors in half. Behlen immediately recalled the parts and fixed the problem. Behlen's scrutiny of failures was as swift and large as his attention to promoting his successes.

In 1949, Behlen invented what became the company's most famous product, the Behlen stressed-skin monocoque building. After experimenting to find the corrugation that would provide the most tensile strength, the Behlens decided on a 7.5-inch deep, multiple-stepped series of bends that in profile looked like half of a honeycomb, according to McDaniel.

But when the Behlens told outsiders that they had built a 16-by-20-foot building with no frame and no material heavier than 16-guage sheet metal, no one believed it would stand.

On June 22, 1950, Behlen Manufacturing opened a new 50-by-200-foot stressed-skin monocoque addition to their plant. To better prove the building's strength, Behlen hung 16 new International Harvester Model M tractors from the roof ridge member.

The building didn't budge.

But 64,000 pounds of tractors wasn't good enough for Behlen.

In 1955, Behlen built two buildings at the Yucca Flat Atomic Energy Commission test site in Nevada. On May 5, 1955, a 30-kiloton atomic bomb (equivalent to 30,000 tons of TNT) was tested at the site. One Behlen building was 6,800 feet away from the site of the bomb detonation, and the second was 15,000 feet away.

While the atomic bomb crumpled Behlen's competitors, Behlen's buildings stood damaged but still usable. The Behlen buildings were designed to withstand wind loads of 30 pounds per square foot. According to McDaniel, the pressure wave from the bomb blast at 6,800 feet was 600 pounds per square foot, and at 15,000 feet, 250 pounds per square foot. The July 1955 issue of Popular Science Monthly wrote that the building that was 6,800 feet away "had the front of its roof deeply dented and its sides noticeably poked; window and frames were empty; and its wood door had been split into kindling. But, the building still stood firm and ready to provide shelter." The caption of the photos read, "Weird new shed stood up best."

Both buildings still stand today. Behlen Manufacturing donated the building that was 15,000 feet away to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It currently houses UNL's tractor restoration club's shop.

Looking at it, you would never guess this nondescript white building, tucked behind the Larsen Tractor Test & Power Museum, survived an atomic bomb blast.

That's why the other building by the Behlen factory is painted "atomic orange," which McDaniel describes as "a brilliant-crimson fluorescent paint symbolic of the heat and fury of an atomic blast."

After all, nondescript wasn't really Walt Behlen's style.

Behlen Manufacturing is a successful Nebraska business that is currently under local ownership. They've made everything from grain bins to the new African Grasslands exhibit at the Henry Dorly Zoo in Omaha. One more well-known division is Behlen Country, which produces livestock handling equipment, three-point implements, and horse and pet equipment.

Behlen at the Seattle World's Fair
One Behlen publicity stunt is unique because of its sheer scope and because it was not designed to show the strength or functionality of a specific Behlen product in Columbus.

In 1962, Behlen wanted to do something extravagant and showcase the Behlen corn cribs on display at the Seattle World's Fair with more than corn. So Walt Behlen decided to haul $1 million of silver coins from the Philadelphia mint to Seattle.

Behlen took out insurance for the transportation and display, hired guards, and took two trucks to Philadelphia to pick up the coins. Workers placed 180 cubic feet of dollars in four heavy plate steel boxes, which were especially constructed for the purpose at the Behlen plant. Two boxes were bolted to the floor in each of trailers above the front and rear axles.

Behlen's team loaded 250 sacks, each containing $1,000 in each box. To make sure the public could view the coins, workers cut two holes, about a foot square, in each tractor trailer and covered the hole with heavy-plate glass and then filled the compartments behind the glass with coins. Then several thousand dollars were placed in a small express company "pony" safe locked with a key and chained to one of the large boxes, because Behlen wanted to pay expenses along the route of the caravan in silver dollars. He bought extra dollars later in Seattle to make the display a full million.

The trip took 13 days to reach Seattle, and the coins were put on display in corn cribs, and 4.25 million people passed through the Behlen building in the six months of the fair. Behlen then sold the bags of 1,000 silver dollars for $1,500 each, and made $15,000 on the project, plus the public exposure for the company.

Kinley is assistant editor of publications at the Nebraska State Historical Society.