HOW IT WAS DONE — AGAIN

boiler diameter 5′; 29 tubes 3/8’x11′; grates 4
1/2’x6 1/2′; overall length 27′; overall height 12
1/4′ and the operating pressure is 90 pounds.

Dear Editor: On page two of the May-June ALBUM Lyman Knapp tells
about pulling the Illinois engine out of the mud at Wichita,
Kansas. Knapp’s 25-75 Russell was coupled close to the
Illinois, drawbar, to drawbar, so the Russell would pull up on the
Illinois. Then a chain run under the Russell and coupled to Herbert
and Harold Ottaway’s 50 Case No. 33635, handled by Chaddy
Atteberry of Blackwell, Okla. The Illinois, handled by Allen Trego
of Newton, Kansas, doing what it. could. The Russell was handled by
Lyman Knapp.

The Case with a few loud blasts and blowing cinders over the
hedge and tearing up the ground with its drivers, a few blasts from
the Russell and the Illinois was pulled out backward.

Unfortunately the complete address was not on the picture. As
best we can make out it is from August Smolegus. Will the owner
please send his complete name and address that we may give credit
next issue.

FROM OREGON

I have been interested in the steam traction engine all my life.
I would have been a tall man if I had not worn off so much of my
logs when was a boy following an old steam outfit going alone the
road.

I kept at the old steam engine until 1906 when I went to the
first steam traction cuisine school that I had ever heard of. It
was at St. Paul, Minn., and was sponsored by B. B. Clark, Editor
and Publisher of the American Thresherman. I met and sot acquainted
with him personally.

I still have my diploma and my steam engine License for
Minnesota and I am quite proud of them. That was in June 1906. The
school could never have been a reality had it not been for the
American Thresherman and its Editor. There wore 189 students. The
Thresher Companies furnished u« with engines to work on. There were
Case (my favorite); Nichols and Shepard; Baker (another favorite);
Advance; Minneapolis and if I remember right a. Gaar-Scott. We
visited all the Branch Houses in Minneapolis and the Northwest Line
at Still-water. We had one gas tractor, Hart-Parr. ‘Those were
the good old days.’ I was 23 years old. Now about all I can do
is think about it. I will be (69) this August. If I figure right it
is 46 years since the school experience.

I took the American Thresherman for years and just now run
across the IRON MEN ALBUM. A neighbor loaned me a couple of them to
read and that is how you get another subscriber.

W. E. Walston, Willamette, Oregon.

The kickers in a community are also the sitters, they have their
feet spread out for others to walk over, so that they are always in
the way.

I find that my son 19 and my daughter 13 take as much interest
in this engine as I do. They have never seen one operate. I have a
country machine shop and we expect to put this engine in as near
new condition as possible. Will send you a colored picture when she
is in shape and painted.

M. J. OSWALT Willamette, Oregon

(Ed. Note: We want the colored picture but send a black and
white so we can use it in the ALBUM. We cannot print a good picture
from a colored print.

ASSOCIATION SUGGESTION

I have been thinking that it would be a great thing if the
threshing Machinery Collectors of the U. S. and Canada would
arrange an association and meet some place, say once a year. We
could talk catalog and exchange views, etc. I believe good friends
Fred Kiser, L. K. Wood, Lucius Sweet, Hans J. Andersen. Yoder of
Kansas and E. R. Potter of Canada, and many others I cannot recall
just now would agree with me on the plan. So please put this in
your great magazine as it will reach 95 per cent of the collectors,
and see what reaction we get on this plan.

I live in southern Illinois, where the Belleville line of
machinery was used for about 80 years. I am not far from Mt.
Vernon, Indiana, where the Keck Gonnerman have their home. I have
visited both factories many times and have seen the machines
built.

Gus Marie, R. D. 4, Murphysboro, Illinois