Tools are objects that are used to manage, oversee, capture, harvest, or collect resources. They also may be used to transform particular materials, both raw and processed. The tools in the collection at the Mayborn Museum Complex are for use in a variety of industries, including agriculture, animal husbandry, food processing and service, and metalworking, textileworking, and woodworking.
Examples of tools in the Mayborn Museum collection include:
- A late-1800s grass sickle handmade in a blacksmith shop on a central Texas ranch,
- A 1905 handmade knife used in Mr. Wester's horseshoeing business, the proceeds of which kept his older brother enrolled at Baylor University,
- One of a dozen silver mugs that General John R. Baylor (Judge Baylor’s nephew) gave to his wife in 1844 on the occasion of the birth of their first son,
- A blacksmith’s forge blower, patented in 1877, used to increase air circulation and create a hotter fire for working with metal.
- A wooden tatting shuttle whittled by Sam Houston for Mrs. Rufus C. Burleson, circa 1860,
- A one-man crosscut saw used by Emmett E. Raley in 1897 to cut wood near Clifton in Bosque County, Texas