- Related Articles
- LET'S TALK RUSTY IRON
- BETWEEN THE BOOKENDS
- IRON AGE ADS
'Century' Harvester Back in Business:
California Group Restores One-of-a-Kind Best Steam Combined Harvester
By Leslie C. McDaniel
Two giants will heave open a window to the past this June. The two - a 1906 Best Steam Traction Engine, pulling a 1907 Best Steam Combined Harvester - will be put through their paces in a California wheat field.
Organizers of the Bygone Farming Days Show (June 17-18, Woodland, Calif.) plan to illustrate the complete cycle of food production.
"We hope to take the grain they harvest, run it through the grist mill, make flour, use that to make bread-sticks, and bake them in a pueblo oven," says Lorry Dunning, historical consultant for the Golden State Farm Education Center. "And we may even churn butter for the bread. A lot of people just don't know where their food and fiber comes from."
The Best Harvester is a relic from an era long since passed. But as recently as the late 1950s, it was a working part of a California farm operation.
McClellan Lovelace, who farmed in the Tulare Lake Basin, was the original owner of the harvester. Detailed records have been hard to come by, but Dunning believes Lovelace purchased the harvester about 1907, and continued using it until 1958.
"That's quite late," he says. "But that's the way these farmers operated: If you got it, use it."
After the harvester was retired, it was kept under cover until about 10 or 15 years ago. Later, storm damage to the building housing it resulted in deterioration. When the harvester was donated to the Joseph A. Heidrick Sr. Foundation in 1998, volunteer restorers had their hands full.
Almost every step of the harvester's restoration has presented unique challenges. Take re-building the harvester's 25-foot header.
"When we looked at a core sample of the existing beam," Dunning says, "we knew we had to have old growth lumber, and it had to be 25 feet long. Well, that's not standard material today. In the old beams, there was not a single knot in them, and the growth ring count was 18 rings/inch. You almost had to have a magnifying glass to see the rings. The new logs have 12 rings/inch. We're really ashamed to paint the header because the wood's so beautiful."