Today was the final day of the Edgar Steam and Tractor Show on a farm near Edgar, WI and what a show it was. Four years ago we attended this show and it has grown tremendously since then.
My brother Ray and I talked to the secretary for the organization which sponsors this great 3 day show. She said attendance has been running at 10,000 people a day with the show getting bigger each year. There were 800 tractors and 350 venders set up for the show as well as food venders, small hit and miss engine section, hundreds of people camping, and demonstrations of work done by small and large engines.
Clyda and I arrived about 10 AM and watched a very large steam engine run an old fashioned saw mill. It drew quit a crowd. We watched a shingle mill cutting shingles, a crew sorting and banding the shingles, and a man branding shingles with the 2011 logo for the show.
There was silo filling, threshing using large steam engines and old stationary threshing machines. There was plowing with a large steam engine pulling an eight gang plow. It took 4 men on the plow to set the depth, three on the engine to run it, 300 plus gallons of water to provide steam, and lots of coal to keep the boiler fired up. One round of the field required another load of water before the next furrow could be turned.
There was a tractor parade which lasted about an hour and a half for all to pass by. Each tractor was announced and the drivers name given. Some were fully restored pristine tractors while others were working tractors. It was a great show!
That's one big tractor.
Look at the line up of steam engines!
Treshing, the old fasioned way.
