HISTORIC LAUNCHING OF FIRST O.V.A.M.

By Staff
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Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
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Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
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Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
4 / 6
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
5 / 6
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
Courtesy of Joe Fahnestock, Union City, Indiana 47390.
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No–this is not the announcement of a first-launching of a
jet-propulsion missile to outer space from the North American Space
Agency Laboratories. Nor does it concern the unveiling of some new
kind of military weaponry, for its purpose was not to wipe out
human life or cause physical suffering.

The only ‘space’ that O. V. A. M. was concerned with was
that of conquering the Brown County Fairgrounds, which it did from
the very first ‘launching’, which took place on August 13,
1971, at Georgetown, Ohio, in the gently rolling hills of southern
Buckeyeland.

The Ohio Valley Antique Machinery boys had never launched an
old-time, historical agricultural show before. But they planned it
like they already had. For at the very first hour of the show’s
opening, every antique tractor, car and gas engine, as well as
concession–everything that was on the card, including the steam
engines–was in its appointed place when the count-down approached
‘zero.’ This does not mean that much other antique
equipment did not arrive, as the week-end wore on and the shop boys
punched out their time-clocks at their respective factories. They
did arrive, to the added interest of all. But all the scheduled
ones were there, in place, when the first flag went up and the
starting gun went off.

‘This is our first show–I guess we should be quite nervous
about it,’ said a very busy Roger Neal, president of O. V. A.
M., who should have been chewing his fingernails, but
wasn’t.

‘We wanted everything in its place before the show started
on opening day.’ added secretary, Stanley Mack, who had worked
so hard to make it that way. Mack, like most secretaries with broad
shoulders, was busy everywhere at all times, greeting and welcoming
folks-seeing to it that everyone was most happily situated to
benefit best his own particular idiom. But, in greeting me, and
accidentally leaning his bare hand on the hot exhaust pipe of the
idling Joe Dear did not make his job any easier– but a bandage
did. And Stanley Mack was just as affable and congenial throughout
the show as if it hadn’t happened. (Though it did.)

As a reward for all their first-year planning, approximately
7,500 crashed the O. V. A. M. gates to get a view of the some
one-hundred antique gas engines all popping and chugging, the forty
old gas tractors of various vintages and designs, the eighty
classical and antique cars, the four old trucks and five steam
engines all with a ‘full head of steam up.’

Jack Maple heads a tandem of Rumely Oil-Pulls at O.V.A.M. Show,
Georgetown, Ohio. Maple is an expert at ‘doctoring the
medicine’ into a big Rumely.

Just to name a few of the outstanding classical cars, there was
a 1934 Cadillac, with V-16 engine, valued at $41,000, a 1920
Cleveland, 1925 Chevrolet, a 1909 Brush and a 1909 Maxwell (without
Jack Benny).

Were one not properly initiated into the field of gas
engine-ology, he might, upon visiting O. V. A. M. Show for the
first time, think that a military maneuver might be in progress.
But to the initiated, it offered no qualms, for it was merely the
din of popping, banging, chugging engines that made up the giant
Gasoline Alley that was spread throughout the northern area of the
Brown County Fairgrounds. From the largest to the smallest-they
were all there–and running. Most dominant, and sounding more like
an anti-tank gun than a gas engine was the ‘Big Daddy of
’em all–a three-ton Joseph Reid Engine, twenty-five
horsepower, two-cycle which Russell and Ronnie Burbee had converted
from natural gas over to LP. Noteworthy on this particular engine
was the auxiliary cylinder, in front of the main cylinder, which
acted as a fuel pump to the combustion chamber. Purchased at
Junction City, Ohio, this huge engine was the type that had been
used for many years, pumping oil in and around Oil City, Pa., where
it was manufactured. Now and then the Burbee boys stopped the big
Reid, to allow its cylinder to cool down from the LP fuel, and it
required many revolutions from its rated 160 rpm to finally die.
Painted in bright orange and grey, the big Reid two-cycle giant was
an eye-stopper, just as onlookers walked onto the O.V.A.M. grounds.
Russell and Ronnie were so proud of their achievement, first in
capturing ‘such a giant alive’, then transporting it to the
Brown County Fairgrounds, that they sat up all night in chairs to
guard it so no one picked it up and carried it away.

Making up some of the rest of the one-hundred gas engines at O.
V. A. M. Gasoline Alley were such as the little 2? H. P. Stover
Engine, belonging to Paul Sapp, which was belted to a large
grindstone–a boon and accommodation to those carrying dull Barlow
Jacknives which were in need of sharpening. Then there was the
small John Deere Engine belted to an old-time, double-tub wash
machine. (But no one was washing their clothes–just lookin’
they ‘wuz’.)

One 5-Horse Economy Engine was banging out her stuff with a very
pronounced staccato. Upon drawing closer, we discovered Harold
Winkle of Mowrys-town, Ohio, leaning heavily on a two-by-four beam,
propped against the flywheel, bringing out the Economy bark in
steady rhythm. Good for the ears, but made the old two-by-four
smoke a little. Winkle was also putting his 5-Horse-power
Fairbanks-Morse Type-Z through the ‘two-by-four brake
tests’ bringing out the sharp bark of its exhaust.

There was the smaller 3-Horse Fairbanks-Morse Type-Z with a long
pipe which gave a deep pipe-organ effect to the exhaust (sounded
like 10-Horse, instead)–owned and operated by Wendell Kelch of
Georgetown, Ohio.

One of the most unusual of the smaller rigs around O. V. A. M.
gasoline alley was what appeared for all the world to be a small
steam traction engine, but with a 1? Horse McCormiek-Deering Engine
mounted atop the ‘boiler.’ No man on the grounds was having
more fun than Victor Koteen who kept blowing his whistle and
puffing smoke out his stack–quite reminiscent of the old Towhsend
Tractors which ran by gasoline but looked like steamers. Maybe
Victor won’t murder us for divulging a secret here, but he had
a specially-concealed copper pipe leading up to the smokestack
exhaust, into which he kept pumping a few drops of crankcase oil
from his engineer’s oil-can, to make his ‘steamer’
smoke. And whenever he coaxed his air-compressor up to fifty
pounds, he could really toot his whistle– an old brass one which
formerly adorned a merry-go-round.

Attorney Joe Martin, legal counselling member of the Ohio Valley
Antique Machinery Assoc, Georgetown, Ohio, drives his old
McCormick-Deering Tractor, which has been in his family since it
arrived by rail-car back in ’25. The cigar-chewing Joe is a
real legal-beagle for the organization, with plush offices in the
prominent turret that overlooks Georgetown, Ohio, Main street. But
at the O.V.A.M. reunion his main office is on the seat of the old
McCormick-Deering, or up on a wagon pitching bundles.

Stanley Mack, secretary of Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Assoc,
had fun driving his 10-20 IHC Titan Tractor. So did his wife, Mary
Mack (sounds like the good ship Merrimack, doesn’t it?) who
drove it through Georgetown, Ohio parade and made it, despite a
cantankerous carburetor.

Eye stopper at O.V.A.M. Show, Georgetown, Ohio was this
three-ton James Reid Engine converted to LP by Russell and Ronnie
Burbee who bought it at Junction City, Ohio. It was manufactured at
Oil City, Pennsylvania for work in the oil fields, made to run on
natural gas. Note auxiliary cylinder which pumps fuel into main
cylinder.

Among the large antique tractors were, of course, the Rumely
Oil-Pulls, with Jack Maple putting the big 30-60 through its paces
at the Baker Fan. Jack is a master at figuring out the problems,
whenever a Rumely needs its ‘medicine doctored’.

Even Secretary Stanley Mack was able to toss off his official
burdens long enough, now and then, to snatch a few moments of real
fun, driving his 10-20 IHC-Titan over the reunion grounds, despite
the fact that he hadn’t yet whipped the carburetor trouble by
show time. Some say that men are better drivers than women. The
opposite sex claims differently. But even his lovely wife, Mary
Mack, (not spelled Merrimack), couldn’t make old Titan run
better, as she coaxed the old giant through the downtown
parade.

And speaking of parades–the Ohio Valley Antique Machinery
Association had one of the most beautiful parades through the main
thoroughfares of Georgetown, Ohio, that we have ever witnessed. The
old-time classical cars, the horse and buggy vehicles conveying
their gay-nineties ladies and gentlemen, the smoke-belching steam
engines and antique tractors, passing in dignity before the
beautiful old Georgetown courthouse lent a nostalgic charm to this
quaint southern Ohio community. It was very well organized and
planned, made possible by full cooperation of all local
law-enforcement agencies. (Who says it doesn’t help to have a
good lawyer, interested in gas tractors, on your side?) For Joe
Martin, legal-beagle for O. V. A. M., had fetched his own 10-20
McCormick-Deering tractor over for the three-day occasion.

‘We’ve had this McCormick-Deering Tractor in our family
since the day it arrived on a railroad car back in 1925,’ says
attorney Martin–just ‘Joe’ to the boys. Joe was the
hardest guy to find on the O. V. A. M. grounds. Dressed in common
farm overalls, looking most illegal, he was either running his
tractor here and there, or way up on the grain wagon pitching
bundles or blowing the straw-stack, same as anyone else. (What a
lawyer for such an organization– cigar-chewing Joe Martin is the
best!) No wonder the O. V. A. M. had its troubles solved
legally–and without all the usual legal entanglements.

Guess who’s having fun? Victor Koteen of Russelville, Ohio
sneaks a few drops of oil from his engineer’s oil-can into a
secret, concealed pipe which leads over to the stack exhaust and
makes ‘real smoke’. Powered by a 1? HP McCormick-Deering
gas engine, it looks, acts and sounds like a real-for-sure steam
thresh engine. And when he gets up to 50 pounds of air pressure, he
can blow his merry-go-round whistle just as good as if it were
steam. (If only Victor had changed a few lines and made it look
like a Townsend!) But why spoil his fun!

21-75 Baker, plus one horsepower booster. There was all kind of
real horsepower at the Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Show,
Georgetown, Ohio. Baker is owned by Edwin Fiscus, Vice-President of
Ohio Valley Antique Machinery Association.

(Yes, I know it’s a steam engine but it goes well with the
Show Report-we have to let steam sneak in now and then just as we
do with a gas picture once in awhile in I.M.A.-Anna Mae)

One of the outstanding exhibits at the Ohio Valley Antique
Machinery Show was the Panorama of Steam Over a Century and a Half,
which occupied a huge trailer owned and operated by Lee Hunter and
Bill Whelan. Many of the operating models were of steam threshing
engines (climbing hills before your eyes), steam locomotives in
various stages of mechanical evolution, steam boats, canal barges,
and stationary engines from the simplest to the most intricate
‘grass-hopper variety. It was worth) of a Worlds Fair
honorarium in the Science Hall of Fame.

Our congratulations to the ‘Historic Launching of the First
O. V. A. M.’-a show which had its humble beginnings in the
basement of the linger Neal mansion when a group discovered they
had twenty-live old tractors in an eighteen-mile radius, and
decided then and there to have a show.

For those three fun-packed Good Old Days, we can but say,
‘Thank you’, to all who worked so hard to make it
‘that-a-ways’.

  • Published on Jan 1, 1972
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