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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2020
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APPEAL TRIBUNE
LIFE IN THE VALLEY
Steam engine belted up to a threshing machine at what now the 2600 block of Summer St. SE in Salem in 1894. Scenes like these were common summer sights in the
Salem area in the late 19th and early 20th century. WILLAMETTE HERITAGE COLLECTIONS
Heritage: Celebrating the
steam era on Mid-Valley farms
Kylie Pine
Willamette Heritage Center
Take a moment and conjure up a vi-
sion of harvesting on a wheat farm.
What do you see? Today’s air-condi-
tioned-cab combines operated by one
person is a far cry from the technology
used on Mid-Valley farms a century ago.
Then, threshing crews banded together
with steam-powered engines resem-
bling little locomotives to thresh crops.
Even though the steam era was eclipsed
by gas-powered tractors, many Mid-
Valley farmers harbored a love for the
old engines. In the 1950s, yearly festi-
vals were established to celebrate and
remember. The tradition continues to-
day. In fact, the Great Oregon Steam-Up
held yearly at Brooks was just awarded
Oregon Heritage Tradition status.
In the wake of the Civil War, steam
was the latest trend in new and efficient
farming technology. Advertisements
for steam-powered threshing engines
start appearing in Oregon newspapers
as early as 1862, claiming capability “of
running the largest sized Separator, and
threshing in one day, in a good and
workmanlike manner, 2,000 sacs [sic]
of grain.” Powered by water and wood,
straw or coal (the former being readily
available in the Mid-Willamette Valley),
these portable power units could be
moved into the field and belted up to a
separator machine, processing grain
crops right on site. The early models
were horse-drawn, but later models
could drive under their own steam pow-
er. The new technology was expensive.
One 1868 advertisement listed engines
for sale starting at $900 dollars (About
$16,800 in today’s money). Farmers
sometimes banded together to pur-
chase threshing machines and engines
to run them, ensuring use on their own
fields and a ready and invested crew of
neighbors.
Until the 1920s, steam threshing
crews were a regular summer sight and
sound on Mid-Willamette Valley farms.
Unlike modern tractors, boilers on trac-
tion engines take hours to safely heat
up and be ready for the day’s work. This
meant early mornings. Keeping the fire
going and the water levels up in the
boiler meant a constant stream of sup-
ply wagons and workers to supervise all
the activities. With so many people in-
volved, often over large distances,
crews developed a series of signals that
could be blasted out on the whistle at-
tached to the engine for easier commu-
nication. As one Oregon Statesman re-
porter noted in August of 1905: “Har-
vesting time is now in full swing in most
every section around Salem. Early in
the morning one can hear the whistles
of the threshing engines as they are
Steam traction engine is belted up in the fields. While steam powered engines were eclipsed by gas-powered equipment in
the early 20th century, collectors kept these antique machines running for demonstration in a variety of shows and
festivals that cropped up in the mid-1950s and continue today. WILLAMETTE HERITAGE COLLECTIONS
making preparations to begin the day’s
labor, which generally lasts in Oregon
from sixteen to eighteen hours to the
day, knocking off one hour for dinner...”
Agricultural technology changed
again with the easier to run and cheaper
to produce internal combustion en-
gines. Steam traction engines, when
they escaped the scrap heaps and metal
drives of World War II, became curios.
One local collector was Silverton-born
Harvey E. Mikkelson, whose father Al-
bert had worked on a threshing crew on
Howell Prairie in Harvey’s childhood.
Harvey began, as one reporter romanti-
cally noted, rescuing all the engines he
could find “neglected and rusting in
leaking old barns.” By the 1950s he had
acquired 12 engines and restored nine to
working order. A demonstration of a
few engines from his collection in a pa-
rade celebrating Silverton’s Centennial
garnered a lot of interest in the commu-
nity. So, Harvey and his wife Myrtle de-
cided to host an old-fashioned thresh-
ing bee at their farm in Bethany, about a
mile out of Silverton. October 3, 1954
brought over 1,000 people from nine
states out to see the Mikkelson’s en-
gines and started a tradition that would
continue almost annually for the next 12
years. Crowds would surge in the up-
coming years to 6,000 people. Over
time, other groups like the Silverton-
based Silver T Horseless Carriage Club
brought in additional attractions for the
large crowds that would gather. Silver-
ton’s Harvest Fest also grew up around
the event offering pageants, parades
and more entertainment with the
threshing bee as an anchor event.
For many old-timers in the region
nothing quite beat seeing the old equip-
ment in operation. Centenarian Hans
Nelson, who had farmed for nearly 60
years in Monitor, even lent a hand
pitching bundles. His only concession
to his age, he quipped: “I used to climb
up the stack; a ladder’s a bit handier
now.”
Mikkelson was a member of the
Western Steam Fiends Association, a
group of collectors and enthusiasts
from all over the Western United States,
Canada and Mexico. The group had
their first “field day” in Oregon at the
Rodney Pitts Farm outside of Canby in
1955. It drew large crowds, too, and add-
ed plowing and engine races to thresh-
ing demonstrations every Labor Day
weekend on the Pitts farm until 1959.
The Western Steam Fiends Association
also hosted Steam-up events associat-
ed with the Clackamas County Fair in
Canby and North Marion County Fair in
Woodburn, eventually landing at the
Frank Petzel farm just west of the 1-5 in-
terchange at Brooks in 1970, the site
that still hosts the Great Oregon Steam-
Up every year and is now home to the
Powerland Heritage Park and 16 inde-
pendent museums and associations.
This year marks the 50th anniversa-
ry of the Great Oregon Steam-Up at
Brooks, but, as with most everything
these days, Covid-19 has canceled the
event in the traditional sense. You can
still get a taste, though. The Antique Po-
werland Museum Association has de-
vised a drive-thru version of the event.
You still have time to catch it Aug. 22
and 23. Find more information here:
https://www.antiquepowerland.com/
events/crusin-thru-powerland-1.
Kylie Pine is curator and collections
manager at the Willamette Heritage
Center, a 5-acre museum in downtown
Salem dedicated to connecting genera-
tions by preserving and interpreting the
history of the Mid-Willamette Valley.