Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania 17022
Are steam engine fairs just for country folk? Not on your
tintype. The popularity of these shows seem to be picking up steam,
even among the big city boys.
The New York Sunday News of July 11, last year, had an article
written by Edwin Field telling readers what they could expect to
see at the July 24 and 25 Spring Grove Steam Show.
This 10th Annual affair was held at the Charles Hitchcock Farm
in New York’s Cayuga County at Levanna, on Route 90 near Cayuga
Lake, between Union Springs and Aurora.
Mr. Hitchcock was good enough to send a letter recently to
Iron-Men editor, Gerald Lestz, in which he described the show.
Hitchcock says the event is unique for the area. It is held on a
farm and is an noncommercial as it can be made. If a visitor
doesn’t want to spend a cent, he needn’t. Donations are
accepted, of course.
Hitchcock goes on to say:
‘Everything is done with horses, old gas engines and steam.
In other words, our grain for threshing is not brought in on a
truck, it is brought in from the field with horses, on a bundle
wagon. The threshed grain then goes into an old grain wagon box
also hauled with horses.
‘Another example, the stone crusher powered with steam
elevates the crushed stones into a dump wagon which the horses then
haul and dump in the driveway. They are then leveled with a
horse-drawn road grader and finally rolled with a horse-drawn
roller.
‘We try as hard as we can to keep modernization out of the
show.’
Hitchcock says he intended last year’s event to be the last,
but since attendance was the biggest ever, the event will be seen
again this year. It is scheduled for July 23 and 24.
In Fields’ Sunday News article he tells of an old wheat
thresher, a sawmill, stone crushers and straw pressers all powered
by steam. He tells of a tiny train and a little boat giving rides
to youngsters. He talks about a calliope playing ‘tunes of
yesteryear’ as young and old are transported into the past when
times were simple and songs had tunes and there was always
‘something to do.’
Fields also writes of flea market booths, the real jewel boxes
of nostalgia where toys and books and kitchen items are sold. Some,
we suspect, are taken home only to show up again somewhere at
another fair.
In the September-October issue of The Iron-Men Album last year,
a letter from Lewis A. Wright, of R. D. 2, Cornland, New York, has
this to say about visiting steam shows:
‘We have attended them as far south as South Carolina and as
far west as Iowa, but the best one that we have seen is right here
near home and we never miss it. It is the Spring Grove Show, put on
by Mr. Charles Hitchcock at Levanna, New York. Though not by any
means the largest, it is the most complete and varied show that we
have ever seen. You name it, they have it and they do it.’
The Auburn, New York, Sunday paper, ‘The Citizen,’
covered last year’s event. Reporters, Walter Rewald and Steve
Taylor, noted that visitors came from far and near. They wrote that
1,000 chicken barbecues were served, with proceeds benefiting the
Aurora Volunteer Fire Department.
We imagine that Mr. Fields’ article brought many an urban
dweller to the fair, some from nostalgia, some from curiosity, some
perhaps for just a day in the country.
Many a citizen of the nation’s cities has roots on the farm.
Indeed, don’t we all, for before there were cities, there were
farms.
After reading Mr. Hitchcock’s letter and Mr. Wright’s
endorsement and ‘The Citizen’ article, we might just run up
to the Spring Grove Steam Show ourselves this summer during
vacation.
