PAGE A10, KEIZERTIMES, JULY 23, 2021
LIFE
David Boyce (right) of Aurora is pictured with a 1915 steam tractor at the Great Oregon Steam-Up in 2018. File
photo
Big machines stir to life at Steam-Up event
BY HELEN CASWELL
For the Keizertimes
For a half century, a unique play-
ground called Powerland Heritage Park
near Brooks has collected and honored
the machines that shaped Oregon’s
early development.
Its
summer
Great
Oregon
Steam-Up celebration has drawn
crowds from the very beginning to
admire and watch the steam tractors
and gas tractors, the railroads, motor-
cycles, trolleys and lumber machinery
that made the Willamette Valley what
it is today.
The highly anticipated Steam-Up,
opening this weekend, will be
Powerland’s 50th festival, and will be
bigger than ever, said volunteer Tom
Tomczyk.
“If there isn't something you find
interesting at Steam-Up, you need to
“It is one of the
best
entertain-
ment opportunities
in the mid-valley
for young and old
alike.”
The
Steam-Up
runs 7 a.m. to 5
p.m. Saturday and
Sunday the next
two weekends –
July 24-25 and July
31-Aug. 1. Ticket
information
is
available at www.
antiquepowerland.
— TOM TOMCZYK
com.
Great Oregon Steam-Up Volunteer
The park and
the Steam-Up cel-
ebration have dis-
tinctively Oregon
get to your doctor quickly and see if
you still have a pulse,” said Tomczyk. origins. They began as well-loved
If there isn't something
you find interesting at
Steam-Up, you need
to get to your doctor
quickly and see if you
still have a pulse.
get-togethers for area farmers nearly
100 years ago, said Paul Duchateau, a
Powerland volunteer and connoisseur
of early steam traction engines.
“It all started with summer meet-
ups in the 1930s, with farmers out in
the fields celebrating steam-powered
threshers that were already historical
at the time,” Duchateau said.
“Farmers felt nostalgic for the
machinery they remembered from
when Willamette Valley agriculture
become mechanized in the late 1800s
and early 1900s.
“They ran the old steam engines
and held threshing bees,” he said.
“Back then, those get-togethers
were held at different locations come
summertime,” said Duchateau, “like at
the [Harvey E.] Mikkelson farm out in
Silverton, and other farms and places
over by Woodburn. The old owners