411 N.E. First St., Galva, Ill. 61434
THE GALVA NEWS
Thursday, September 22, 1966
By Roy holding
It is too bad that some of the more prominent names in the
nation’s news papers today could not have enjoyed the same type
Had these gentlemen been able to run out, fire up a boiler and
blow off a batch of steam in recent months, we might not be labored
every morning at the breakfast table with the accounts of the
chaotic can cans held on streets about the nation.
Since 1904, has been-or was until last week a member of the
devout who’d rather fire up a boiler than a crowd, and stir the
blood with the shrill of a steam engine whistle instead of
exhortations.
Since 1904, when Bert took up the task of community steam
thresherman, he has owned and operated 35 different steam engines
and threshers, corn shellers, clover hullers, fodder shredders,
wood saws, road graders and everything that went with the age of
steam.
For those young’ns in the crowd it should be pointed out
that back in those days millions of acres of grain were harvested
and threshed by the magnificent iron steeds that billowed smoke and
shrieked impatiently when it was time for their masters to settle
around a bountiful noon dinner table.
You see kids, steam engines weren’t concocted just so Bert
and his aides over the yearsBert Hall and Ronald Holtcould haul
youngsters around the Galva square on Sidewalk Day.
Back in 1923, Bert joined the Rotary Club of Galva and created
quite a bit of consternation in Rotary International. Seems that
although steam engines had been around longer than Rotary, the
Rotarians had no occupational classification for threshman and
custom operator. They immediately created one and Bert became the
first to wear such a designation on his big, round badge. In fact,
Bert could well have been the only one.
When the tractor came along and heralded a new age of
mechanization in agriculture, the steam engine like many other
grand characters of history just passed out of the farm
picture.
But when you’re got steam bubbling in your veins and the
tang of coal dust in your nostrils, you don’t succumb so easily
to progress.
Bert bought an old Case steam engine built in 1916 from Walter
Raum at Hamilton, Ohio. For 12 years he put his ‘old Case’
through its paces at the Central States Thresher’s Reunion at
Pontiac.
No Sidewalk Day was complete until the wail of the Case
indicated she was all fired up and ready to haul kids on a hay
wagon around the square. And despite the accent on speed by the
younger generation, they lined up to creep around four blocks at
five-miles-an-hour.
Bert even won a rare prize in this souped up age. Last August he
took the ‘slow race’ award at the Buda Early Gas and Steam
Engine Show by creeping past the reviewing stand at the slowest
rate of speed.
But, as Bert points out, ‘steam engines as well as humans
become due for retirement.’ Not being eligible for social
security, what could be more appropriate for the Case than to spend
the remaining years in a museum. There all the kids born after the
age of steam can gawk at and admire.
Soafter a final performance at Old Settlers’ Day in Bishop
HillBert shipped his 1916 Case off to the Ella Sharp Museum in
Jackson, Michigan, last week, officially terminating an era in
Galva history.
But the age of steam won’t be completely forgotten.
A small 1913 vintage Case Bert acquired along the smoky path is
being donated to the Bishop Hill Heritage Association.
And then, of course, there’s always that steam coursing
through Bert’s arteries.
Could it erupt again may be about Sidewalk Day?