RR 2, Box 143 Leavenworth, Kansas 66048
Hello members and everyone in Engineland!
Well, a good many shows are over and a few are yet to come. I
hope to be able to make a few of them. We had a large show at
McLouth. Friday it rained, then cleared about 5:00 p.m. They moved
the Friday night show of Dave & Sugar from Nashville up to the
school house in town. They thought there weren’t going to be
many people but the sun brings folks out and there was standing
room only. Saturday was a big day and I had a good friend from
Branch 16, J.B. Groff, who owns a 16 HP Huber, come up and he ran
my 18 HP Huber and gave some good tips on it. As I am doing a good
bit of learning on the return flue engine, it is different indeed.
But they sure are a good engine, and a very safe engine. They do
not have the deterioration that other engines have so much. No stay
bolts or through stays to rust and no corners to trap scale.
Platte City Show, where Branch 19 is, is the one I belong to. It
did rain one day, but we had a good show and good crowd the other
two days. I have found that the shows around here mostly all had
one day of rain, but all in all, we had pretty good shows.
Each show seems to have its own style. One will have more big
engines like McLouth and another like Platte City has a lot of
small engines and some real nice scale engines like a real nice
Russell, by Turnbulls Machine Shop, who can build and repair almost
anything metal in machinery.
Then on to Hamilton, Missouri, the boyhood home of J.C. Penney.
They have a new grandstand and nice parade ground. They have some
big engines like Stan Mayberry’s 20 HP Advance. At Hamilton I
met another engine collector helping Stan run his Advance. He is
E.J. Doe Murphy of Council Bluffs, Iowa. He has a great collection
of engines, and I mean great! He has done much work on these
engines and other equipment. He has a 20 HP Minneapolis engine with
water wagon and wooden separator all in tow. But then you look
beyond it and see his rare Illinois 20 HP engine, and then an 18 HP
Woods that there are few of, and of course, the nice Advance 20 HP
like the one he was helping Stan run. Another thing about this man
with the knowledge and experience is he is always giving some of it
to . the young engine men. There is always some little thing that
each engine man may have done that can sometimes help a young
engine man and make things much easier for him or her, as the case
may be these days, as in the old days too. I can remember Pat
Haltcamp’s two daughters running his engine. I never saw anyone
run one any smoother. The same with Lyle Hofmaster’s girls, and
I must include Coletta Steinmetz, who could handle an engine as
good as anyone and did it for many years.
We just lost one of our real engine men around here. He was Web
Mooney of Nortonville, Kansas. He built a scale model of a Nichols
& Shepard separator also. Chad Atteberry of Black well,
Oklahoma has it today, so it has a good home.
Well folks, I had better get out and unload my 1936 Oliver Hart
Parr 18×17 I just bought.
See you at the shows!
