Monroe Center, Illinois
DAVIS JUNCTION, ILL.: George W. Hedtke claims that his
Hickory-Oaks Farm is a place where old can relive the past and the
young can learn. For most people who visit the annual Steam and
Horsepower Show on one of the four days the first full weekend in
August, this pivotal point is a curious cameo.
It is a few hours of fancy, but for George Hedtke, Emil Svanda,
and Thomas Draus, the officers, and the handful of people at
Hickory-Oaks it is a full life. It is not held in by bookends of
time. For four days, about 16,000 people watch as the 22 ton Case
steam engine plows and 12 horse powered thresher of 1889 clanks.
Mules bray, horses strain, and the machinery cranks. They watch as
men and women handcraft objects of love.
Thirty acres for parking fill with cars and campers, coming from
33 states, 12 papers from towns like Woodstock, Elgin, DeKalb,
Yorkville, Dixon, Beloit and even Chicago focus with intensity.
They stand on the sidelines as numerous steam engines of monstrous
size and gas powered agricultural giants of olden days, gulp 12
tons of coal, hundreds of gallons of fuel, and run through a budget
of $8,000 to flex their muscles of steel.
The people who come to the show are joined by a legion of
enthusiastic purists who read ‘Iron-Men Album,’
‘Engineers and Engines,’ and other journals of a similar
nature. These curious people are the same type who attend many of
the 35 shows throughout the states during the month of August. They
are the people who have attended shows from Oklahoma to Ontario,
from Washington to New York. Many have been to the Grand Daddy of
all the shows at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. These people know and
understand and appreciate, the beauty of the operation from its
standpoint, and its most technical aspects. They come because they
care.
As surely as the show has come for the past 21 years it goes.
People return home with a threshermen’s meal under their belt,
carrying something with them. The ballyhoo stops, the engines cool,
and the equipment is polished and stored for another year. Now!,
George Hedtke, Emil Svanda, Tom Draus, Harm Hayenga, Floyd King and
many others can take that trip to Stebbinsville to see the restored
turn of the century water power plant on the banks of the Yahara
River. Also the group can tour foundries of interest and tramp back
into Wisconsin woods to seek out abandoned farm machinery and to
discover a huge deserted saw mill in the thickets.
They can look forward to the annual Christmas party and the June
picnic for the 100 associated members and their families. During
the winter months they can paint, tinker, and dinker for the
ancient piece of machinery they’ve found. It’s a time to
study old manuals, make new parts and to overhaul the old.
George Hedtke, the little farm boy who spent most of his youth
days drawing, making or watching agricultural machinery, can get
back to his life long work. His 300 pieces of ancient machinery,
worth a quarter of a million need the attention that this farm boy
in bib overalls can give them. They’re not all finished and not
all found. There’s more to be gotten. The Frontier Village
which has been planned at Hickory-Oaks Farm, is slowly taking shape
with four buildings already moved in.
Approach Hedtke or the members of the Association during the
show in August, or just pop the clutch any day. They have a full
head of steam. Their knowledge of the past, respect of the land,
and gentle dignity colored with a bit of showmanship holds most
people fascinated.
