The 1913 Gaar-Scott steam engine that the Mitchell family of Kindred, North Dakota, pour time and energy into isn’t, in fact, their engine. But for all the attention they give it, it might as well be.
Each year, family members spend four days running the 25hp single-cylinder engine at the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion in Rollag, Minnesota. They put the engine on the prony brake, they join in the daily parade and they engage onlookers in a variety of ways. In one recent parade, the audience was delighted to see a John Deere GreenStar GPS receiver that had been installed on the engine, complete with a dummy string for an authentic touch.
The Gaar-Scott was originally purchased from a Conrad, Montana, man by the late Floyd Brudevold, who took the engine to Rollag in 1968. He was told that the engine had been used to break the Montana sod and had done a lot of plowing, and that seems likely to Larry Mitchell.
“When we were standing at the engine next to another one used in the sawmill, you could tell the difference,” Larry says. “The gears on this engine are its weakest part. They show years and years of wear. We had to rebuild the intermediate gear on this engine about a dozen years ago.”