206 W. Anthony, Cory don, Iowa 50060
The Decatur County Threshing Show, Aug. 9-19, at Leon, la. was a
whopping good steam threshing show. I think this show was sponsored
by the Decatur County Historic 1 Society. Over the past few years,
this show has been on farms, etc., but this year it was moved to
the Fairgrounds at the north edge of Leon and this was a good
Three steam engines were each hooked up to a separator. Steam
Engine enthusiast, Jim Smith, was there with his Case steamer. Jim
is from Garden Grove, in., a small town not too far from Leon.
Evert Anderson and sons, Lee and John brought their Aultman Taylor
steam engine and the Maxwell Bros, from Ridgeway, Missouri, were
there with a Nichols Shepehard engine and a small one about ? grown
that was homemade; a little nice engine.
Behind the straw pile was an old Model D John Deere tractor,
painted like new, running I think, a John Deere hand tie baler. At
one time, also, the Maxwell Bros, small steam engine took a turn on
this. Then along with the Power baler was a hand operated baler,
owned and operated by Dewayne Vaughn of Lamoni, la. Dewayne would
throw in a few fork fulls of straw and then work a big wooden
lever, then some more straw and finally there was a bale of straw.
The old name on this baler was still good. It said, ‘Little
Giant Hay and Paper Press’, patented July 1900.
As I saw it while there Sunday afternoon, the grain was going
into a nice repainted farm wagon, but there was a 1922 or 1923
Samson truck on hand, if needed. This truck is owned by Harry Olsen
of Garden Grove. Rollie Fight was taking care of this truck. In
fact, it seemed to me like, Rollie was all over. As I was leaving,
he was running a Moline tractor, the kind that had the big drive
wheels in front. I know Rollie is one of the pushers in the Decatur
Historical Society.
Lots of gas engines showed up even Dana Davis from Unionville,
Mo. Dana had a single wheel garden tractor that he said a man in
Centerville, la. gave around five hundred and eighty-five dollars
for, years ago. This seems hard to believe when we can all remember
when the old Fordson tractor sold for around four hundred
ninety-five dollars plus freight.
I didn’t get to meet but a few of the gas engine exhibitors.
Rich Parsons was there from Indianola, la., also Wayne Holder from
Leon with a trailer load of engines. I had hoped to meet Roger
Gatton of Leon but found he was furnishing one of the grain
separators and so was too busy to bring engines.
There were a number of antique cars at the show. One man had
even brought His 1923 Model T Touring all the way from Davenport,
la. Also in this line up was a truck owned by Harry Olsen of Garden
Grove. This was one of those attachments that you bought and
converted the ordinary Model T car into a chain drive truck. Basil
Dale of Humeston was on hand with his real nice 1925 Chevrolet
touring car, and his Dad. Vere Dale had his nice 1927 Chevrolet
Sedan on hand too.
There were two rows of interesting old farm machinery.
At the same time all the threshing, etc., was going on there was
a horse show taking place in the arena at the fairgrounds.
Other interesting items to see were a small mule hooked to a
sweep feed mill, a hand corn sheller running full speed, by mostly
small boys, several men gave demonstrations of hewing logs flat
with broad axes, which used to be done when log cabins were
built.
There was an abundance of antique dealers and flea market
dealers on hand. There were some good antiques for sale and of
course, as usual, some plain junk.
I only had around 3 hours to observe this show, jot down notes,
take pictures and try to meet a few people who helped out in this
show. One man who helped a lot was Carl Coffey of Leon who had a
lot to do with the binding, socking, etc. and also furnished one of
the separators. Dang it, I never got to meet Carl. Anyway I have
tried to write this the way I saw it. I predict this will become
quite a show in the future because I’m sure that with the
success they had this year, there will be lots more exhibitors next
year.