The HCEA Big Dig 2021

Antique construction equipment, steam engines and tractors have a romp on Kansas farm

By Leslie C. McManus
Published on February 5, 2022
article image
by Leslie C. McManus
Front: Dave Dobratz, Council Grove, Kan., on his Caterpillar D4. Back: An International crawler operated by Levi Martens, Fairview, Okla., pulling a Baker-Manning pan scraper owned and operated by Mike Waggoner, Cushing, Okla.

The blades on an installation of wind turbines were spinning for all they were worth when The Big Dig opened near Concordia, Kansas, on a hot August day in 2021. And as the state song memorably notes, “the skies were not cloudy all day.”

Hosted by Prairie Plowing Days, the Historical Construction Equipment Assn. (HCEA) held its 35th annual International Convention and Old Equipment Exposition at a one-of-a-kind event featuring a remarkable display of steam engines, antique tractors and tracked equipment – more than 540 pieces in all – on the Kurt Kocher farm southwest of Concordia in north-central Kansas.

man riding a yellow tractor with a plow on the front

Postponed from August 2020 by concerns relating to the pandemic, the 2021 event seemed determined to make up for lost time. Some 7,000 people were on hand for two days (the show’s final day was rained out) to see an amazing array of antique equipment – steam engines, tractors, dirt movers, scrapers, haul trucks, shovels, cranes, pull and motor graders, elevating grader, drag line, dozers and wheel loaders – put through its paces. For kids, there were several diversions, including a bale maze, playground equipment and sand pile.

Vintage construction equipment was used to create a service road, build and widen two pond dams and level a dam at a silted-in pond. Meanwhile, tractors, prairie tractors and steam engines pulled a 52-bottom plow. Sorghum was pressed with century-old mills, rock was quarried and crushed, and an antique press was used to bale hay. Lots of people were doing lots of things, “and we know they had a good time doing it,” Kurt says.

green tractor pulling a scraper
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