Calling all farmers — past, present and future — and farming aficionados! It’s the 43rd annual Heatwole Threshing Show this weekend — Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 13-14 — about 6 miles southwest of Hutchinson at 15498 Walden Ave.
Named after a crossroads three miles southwest of Hutchinson, the Heatwole Threshing Association is dedicated to preserving the old ways of farming. It’s that commitment that keeps people coming back year after year.
“It’s a good way to see how hard the previous generation worked, what they worked with and see the advances made in equipment,” said Corey Henke, association president. “It’s also a good time to see all this older stuff running and appreciate it. Kids really love it. What kid doesn’t like being around tractors?”
One of the draws of the show is its featured tractor. Past years have honored John Deere, Minneapolis Moline, International Harvester and others. This year’s featured attraction is industrial equipment. According to Henke, a lot of tractor manufacturers also made equipment for road work and factories. It’s these special implements that will be on display, as well as more than 150 antique tractors.
Many of the tractors displayed during the two-day show are featured in a tractor parade 1 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday. The Saturday event is followed by a tractor skills competition, which includes a slow race, barrel roll race and blindfolded driving.
The association is also honoring the 100th anniversary of its 20/40 Rumely Oil Pull tractor. According to Wikipedia, it was one of a line of farm tractors developed by Advance-Rumely Company from 1909 and sold from 1910 to 1930. Most were heavy tractors powered by an internal combustion, magneto-fired engine designed to burn all grades of kerosene.
“The tractor ran belt equipment and pulled implements (such as) the prairie plow, things of that nature, saw mills,” Henke said. “We belt it up to the threshing machine. Our main use is running the threshing machine for the show.”
While grain threshing is front and center, it’s not the only thing happening. The free admission, free parking event showcases everything from log sawing, grain threshing and straw baling to blacksmithing, tractor games and tractor pulling. There’s also a small gas engine display — most of them 100 years old — that are proving to be popular with younger folks.
Another major draw to the weekend show is the antique tractor pull. It is open to all makes of antique field tractors built in 1956 or earlier, and typically attracts about 100 units. It takes place Sunday afternoon.
“The tractor pull is always something people get involved in or like to watch,” Henke said. “The parade is another draw with everything in motion 1 p.m. Saturday and noon Sunday. Tractor games are Saturday, driving contests, skill contests with tractors. That’s very entertaining to watch too.”
KEEPING IT LOCAL
Many of the Heatwole Threshing Association members live within just a few miles of the show grounds in Lynn Township. It was started by Bob Elliott and others back in the early 1980s, and moved to its Walden Avenue site a few years later.
“We are just a local show, so we don’t have that regional interest,” Henke said in an earlier Leader interview.
Heatwole Threshing Show and the Orange Spectacular Allis-Chalmers show, which took place July 22-24 on the McLeod County Fairgrounds in Hutchinson, are perhaps the only free shows of this type in the area. The group mostly funds its activities through sales at the show’s food stand and ice cream parlor.
While this weekend’s Heatwole Threshing Show features two days of old-time farming practices, the work begins much earlier with the spring planting of seed for the August show. Henke said his son asked him why they go to so much trouble to thresh a small amount of grain.
“It’s about preserving the heritage of the neighborhood pulling together to harvest their grain — the camaraderie,” he said. “It took the whole neighborhood to do it. Each neighbor worked with their neighbor. That’s what went missing when the combine came. After that there were threshing bees, small, to preserve memories. We just kept it going. We had to plant grain in spring, tend it in summer, shock it, load it and put it in the shed until the show. We’re still keeping that getting together and doing some physical work. It makes it enjoyable for everybody. There’s always the next generation to teach them how it’s done and tell them the stories of how they did it.”
