Butterfield Show

Men who showed their engines during the first years of the show
– John Pankratz, Elving and Torger Sul-heim, Ed Streich, Harvey
Wahl – have been joined by many more during the years, and now they
come from Iowa, South Dakota, Wisconsin and even Illinois to
show

If anything increases in number – besides visitors – each year
it’s got to be the gas engine exhibit. With the growth of the
Butterfield show, word that exhibitors can sit in cool shade and
run their engines, it seems only natural that the men who tinker in
their workshops all year on gas engine? should show them here.

You can’t miss the gas engines, their familiar chugging, nor
the friendliness of the exhibitors who love nothing better that to
answer questions about their prizes. Men who showed their engines
during the first years of the show – John Pankratz, Elving and
Torger Sul-heim, Ed Streich, Harvey Wahl – have been joined by many
more during the years, and now they come from Iowa, South Dakota,
Wisconsin and even Illinois to show.

The gas engine, of course, provided the farmer with his first
real chance to harness energy to do his many backbreaking chores,
and you’ll be able to see how the engines developed from early
prototypes to the more sophisticated just before electricity hit
the prairie. And you’ll be amazed at the names, the numbers of
engines that came out of workshops all over the country. Luckily,
many have been preserved by our exhibitors as a reflection of our
quest for improving rural life.

Butterfield’s ‘gas engine alley’ is Harvey
Wahl’s Flour City engine, a 10 hp beauty that weighs 3,300
pounds.

A new addition to Butterfield’s ‘gas engine alley’
is Harvey Wahl’s Flour City engine, a 10 hp beauty that weighs
3,300 pounds. Wahl bought the engine at a Valley Springs, S. D.
auction and with his son, spent many hours of restoration for the
1975 show.

Two of the rarest engines at the show are pictured here. Only
one known duplicate of each exists to local collectors.

Above is Ole Lundberg’s 6 horsepower Lightning Engine,
manufactured by the Kansas City Hay Press Co. in about 1900. It is
a single cylinder 4 cycle engine of opposed-piston type. The engine
has one long cylinder barrel with two pistons working in this
barrel, with the piston-heads coming nearly together in the middle.
It can pull or idle at comparatively low R.P.M.’s, and is
efficient because small heat loss requires less water cooling.

Ed Streich’s inverted Hart-Parr gas engine was the first gas
engine in Selma. Bought new by John F. Stark from the Darfur
Elevator back in 1905 for $405, this unique 7 horsepower engine
will run on gas, kerosene or alcohol. When you see it running, it
will have the original oil it had when new. It is oil cooled and
the cylinder points down with the flywheels on top.

This is our 1915 Mogul 8 – 16 tractor. It has the planetary
transmission. People are amazed at this tractor when we have it at
the steam shows to think this was really used by farmers. We had a
new wristpin made for it this winter.

This is our 1926 Rumely Oil Pull 20 – 35 model. We bought it
from the late Mr. Ernie Kirk of Marchwell, Sask. in 1965. This
tractor had not run since 1946 until 1965. We had no problem in
getting it running. There were 30 dead sparrows in the air-intake
stack which appeared to have been there for many years. Mice had
made nests in the radiator which of course soon disappeared when we
got it running.

This is our 1924 Hart Parr 22-40 model. The top which is on it
was made by the John Goodison Co., Sarnia, Ontario, distributors of
the Hart Parr tractor. The original owner would not buy the tractor
unless it had a top that would go over the entire tractor. Its last
job of work was pulling train cars loaded with beets along the
siding at St. Thomas, Ontario.

Here is my newest toy, a Fairbanks Morse No. 851967, Style D,
Type Z 2 H.P. Camshaft speed-750, flywheel speed-500. A little work
on the mag, so now it runs real well. Paid $40.00 for it.