PIERCE, NEB. — For decades, a 10-acre tangle of trees in the corner of a corn and soybean field did its best to hide the legends of Pierce County.

But word got out. You could see a few of the cars from County Road 854 and a few more from the second green and third tee of the neighboring golf course. The sheriff lost count of how many times he was called to the farm to roust radiator thieves or chrome scavengers, and to chase away tire-kickers.

“They were parked in the trees, door handle to door handle, bumper to bumper,” Deb Bruegman said as she served beers in the clubhouse of the nine-hole course. “The trees grew up in and amongst and around them.”

Still, few people were prepared for what emerged from the woods in late July, when a construction crew uprooted the cottonwoods, maples and ash trees and carried their mostly hidden treasures into the sunlight. Rearranged nearby in nine neat rows, each longer than a football field, were nearly 500 cars and trucks including American classics from the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s: Bel Airs and Corvairs, Apaches and Impalas, even a Corvette Pace Car model.