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The home of the 25-foot chicken offers junk to some, rare finds to others

By Mary Ann Holley

Ambrose Schulte is a modern day rag-and-bone man who takes in the unwanted, the abused and the forgotten.

For him, each is a treasure that someone else needs.

For him, a rickety old ripped and torn doctor’s carriage without wheels is a valuable gem just waiting to be reclaimed and restored. An old copper washtub is more than scrap metal and a coat rack made of horse shoes is a trinket someone will say they just have to have.

Schulte, the owner, operator and chief cook and bottle washer of Wagon Master Antiques, Saddle Shop, and a barrage of dealings in-between, has probably a million or more treasures stacked, piled and placed in rows on his 10-acre property along Technology Drive in O’Fallon. Out back, his two sons operate Lumber Plus, Schulte said, and they do very well.

“I don’t know how to stop,” said Schulte, who buys and sells antiques, restores old carriages from the horse and buggy days and operates a small, in comparison, saddle shop.

He’s been in business for 65 years, 40 of those at the current location, a street that was once Hwy. 40, but now sports the name Technology Drive—a name that seems very out of place for a business that takes customers back almost to the invention of the wheel.

“I used to be on Highway 94 years ago, but I needed 10 acres and this property worked,” Schulte said.

At age 86, Schulte is as sharp as a tack. He’s an astute businessman, but has little patience for the mundane. Like most that grow older, his memories flash sporadically. If you ask him where he got something, like the two 8-foot wooden Indians he has for sale, his response is, “Ahh, heck, I don’t know,” as though it doesn’t matter.

He’s just in the business of selling.

Maybe you know Wagon Master Antiques as the place with the towering 20-foot rooster perched at its entrance, or recognize it as that spot along the highway with mounds and mounds of rusting metal piled high.

“Ahh, I don’t remember where I got that rooster, but it’s been out front for 25 years. These piles here are old carriage parts,” Schulte says, pointing to what most would see as a pile of nothing but rusted metal.

Everything has its reason for being there, whether shoppers understand it or not.

“People bring me things. I call them pickers. I look for anything old,” Schulte says. “It’s getting hard though. I don’t collect nothing that is plastic. People try to bring me this plastic junk, and I just won’t take it.”

Schulte has 10,000 license plates on hand, each priced at $3 or $6, depending on their age and condition. He once bought 32 antique cars at one time from a farmer whose land was being taken for a highway.

“I saw those cars and bought them all,” Schulte said. “Oh, I sold them, but my wife liked to kill me when I bought them.”

But Schulte’s wife, Rita, died two years ago. She and Ambrose once operated Schulte Brothers Store in Cottleville, before opening Wagon Master.

“She’d kill me now if she saw how much stuff I have here,” Schulte said. “But I just can’t stop.”

Schulte takes most of the fabulous finds in stride. His inventory is in his head and his organizational skills are lax. But most say, if he doesn’t have it, it probably never existed.

He’s got a barn filled with old wagons— those that date back to the old West—and he’s got a great selection of authentic wooden signs like the Wells Fargo and Co. Express sign, the old beer signs and even a few remnants from old gas stations.

Need a giant bull’s head to hang on your wall? He’s got them. How about a larger than life-sized iron elk? He’s got them. An old merry-go-round horse from some defunct carnival leans against life-size horse replicas, and there are few hundred wooden carriage wheels—some original and some repaired, that are neatly stacked along the perimeters of one barn.

Thousands of old hand tools, children’s games, lanterns, lamps, you name it. Schulte’s Wagon Master Antiques is a place where you can spend the day and still not see everything.

And there are furniture pieces—unique ones, like old secretaries and solid-as-a-rock wooden cutting tables that you’d need a crane to carry out. Heavy iron milk cans are readily found, but nothing about the place is fancy. And there’s no air-conditioning.

“I make money on everything. It’s not hard to make money,” Schulte says, positioning his cap to shade the sun from his eyes. “If I’d live to be 500, I’d never quit this business. There’s no competition.”

It started with carriages

Schulte got his start in this unusual business after serving in the military during World War II and making friends with a guy whom he describes as a “big-shot” with Walt Disney.

“The guy needed some wagons for a movie, so I picked up a bunch from Bangor, Maine and hauled them to Los Angeles for him,” Schulte said. “I almost had him talked into bringing Disney to St. Louis, but the deal was squashed for reasons I don’t want to talk about.”