Kansas City Lightning Engines Light Up Portland Show

Display of five Kansas City Lightning engines at the Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Assn. show offers rare opportunity.

By Leslie C. Mcmanus
Published on February 7, 2017
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Image courtesy Dennis McGrew ❮❯
A 1904 ad for the Kansas City Hay Press Lightning line.

If you stumble onto a Kansas City Lightning engine at a show, you’ve found something unusual. Collectors are aware of just nine surviving engines. To discover a display of five at one show is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Acting on little more than a whim, four collectors and one club made that happen in August at the Tri-State Gas Engine & Tractor Assn. show in Portland, Indiana. “We thought it’d be interesting to get them all together,” says Marv Hedberg, Rush City, Minnesota. “That way people could see their differences and similarities.”

On many engine lines, such an exercise might generate little excitement. But the Kansas City Lightning line is in a class by itself. Unique design – the hallmark of the Kansas City line – is showcased in each of the engines displayed.

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