We thank the Mountain Lake Observer/Butterfield Advocate
Newspaper for permission to use the following article.
BTA President Wayne Kispert told Saturday’s machinery parade
crowd he’d see them next year. ‘If the Good Lord’s
willing and the creek don’t rise.’
The Good Lord seemed willing . . . but the creek did rise. Just
a tad, though, as Saturday’s gloomy skies turned into a mist in
late afternoon then into rain. A half-inch of rain fell on
Butterfield during the 11th annual Threshing Bee, including a
pretty hefty downpour in the wee hours of Sunday morning.
But, as he’s now done for 11 straight years, the Good Lord
looked down on the Butterfield Threshermen and smiled. He gave them
a gorgeous Sunday with bright sun, a nice breeze to fan the Tuberg
Mill and temperatures that just eased over the 70 mark. If the
Threshermen could make a request, it was the kind of day they’d
have asked for.
That description of the skies completed, the inevitable guess at
what the crowd numbered is next.
From several sources comes this compilation on what they
observed.
Parking Chief Clarence Hovdet counted 1400 cars in the expanded
parking lot Saturday,’ he said. And Hovdet’s stood out in
the oats fields all 11 years, so his assessment of Saturday rates
high. It also agrees with gate sales and general observation that
Saturday was the biggest in history, no small part of it attributed
to the fiddler’s contest which boasted big crowds in front of
the stage all day until the rains.
Sunday Hovdet had a physical count in the afternoon of 2534 at
parade time. If you add to it the 350-plus camper units, equal to
last year according to camper director Gene Lenning, and another
300 cars driven by workers and exhibitors, you pop the car total
over the 3150 mark. And, if you figure four people per car as
Hovdet estimates, you come up with about 12,500.
BTA treasurer Winnie Miller didn’t have final gate receipts
totaled, but he said advance button sales were up 15 per cent over
a year ago while total button sales were down about 100 buttons
from last year and last year they were down $900 from 1975. Of
course, this includes only adults and not kids, who get in
free.
But then you can complicate the mathematics by remembering that
buttons at the gate this year were $2, not the $1.50 of 1976, so
gate receipts were no doubt greater than last year when the BTA had
its best year, but not in gate receipts.
Miller also estimates more visitors bought their buttons on
Saturday and came back Sunday. In other words, more came for both
days than ever.
If the good news is that it rained just one-half inch in
Butterfield the bad news had to be it rained 1.5 inches four miles
north of town and three inches at LaSalle. All this rain may have
dampened spirits of those wanting to travel to Butterfield on
Sunday, because the Watonwan Sheriff’s office had its
switchboard jammed by callers from afar asking to know if the show
was still on.
Every exhibit was jammed with people. Long lines stood in front
of the various pioneer village displays from the Tuberg homestead
to the general store. The new depot proved quite an attraction, not
only as a ticket office for the steam train rides, but because it
was the newest attraction, done up authentically with railroad
agent Bill Lenzen and his paraphernalia of the old railroad days.
Max Borchert’s train, too, seemed packed on every ride.
The sawmill sawed, the lath mill cut laths, the antique saws
sawed, the wood splitter split, the shingle mill cut shingles and
the antique planer cut pieces of cedar that drew a huge crowd of
momento seekers.
There were long lines everywhere waiting to get into the finely
appointed Mennonite House and Pioneer church. But seemingly nowhere
were people more fascinated than at the Tuberg Mill, where
Sunday’s gentle breeze showed most something they’d never
seen a windmill grinding wheat into flour. Getting a peek at the
millstones grinding was nearly impossible Sunday afternoon, except
for a long wait.
Four big steam engines and several scales did their work in the
field Saturday. Sunday they had to wait until noon for the sun to
dry the somewhat soggy oats stacks, but they threshed their way
through the stacks although the going was slow on Sunday.
Seventy-nine tractors were on display at this year’s show
and over 50 antique cars and trucks, to boot, to help make it one
of the biggest machinery parades in history. And when they
weren’t running, the antiques provided great stories for some
visitors, memories for others.
The gas engine collections chugged under the trees in the great
abundance everybody’s grown to expect. Several new exhibitors
came with their pets and there were all kinds of promises of
‘new’ engines that would be ready for the 1978 show.
But best of all, it was a ‘quiet’ show. No ugly
incidents, no injuries, none of the worries that come with a big
crowd. And the various events ran like clockwork, save the fiddling
finals which had to move indoors to Engine House No. 1 and the band
concert, which had to be cancelled because of rain.
‘Everything worked just beautifully,’ BTA Pres. Kispert
said, ‘I had so little to do I could have gone on
vacation.’
Now, after a short rest, the planning will start again.
On August 19-20, 1978, the Threshermen will do it all over
again.
