Manager Indiana State Fair Pioneer Farm and Home Show 4000
Morehouse Road West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
Finally the Fall work is done and I have found time to write
about the Indiana State Fair Pioneer Farm and Home Show for hopeful
inclusion in Gas Engine Magazine. The show was held back in August.
I don’t like to think about it. It was over ninety degrees for
every one of the twelve days:
Ninety percent of the 200,000 visitors to the Indiana State Fair
Pioneer Farm and Home Show are non-farmers. Some of them were
raised on farms, some remember summers out at Grand dad’s. Many
of them, however, know very little about American farming. They
know that all that good food down at the supermarket came from some
place, and somehow those farmers they see, portrayed in country
magazines, had something to do with it.
Therein lies the primary task of the dozens of volunteers who
stage the most popular feature of the Indiana State Fair each
August. Our demonstrations, our explanations of the hundreds of
agricultural antiques, and our interpreters who roam the show
grounds point all their actions toward the American consumers of
food and fiber, who sadly know little about it. That task is a
formidable and rewarding one.
As you enter the main hall of the Pioneer Village, you will see
reconstruction of summer kitchens, old fashioned country kitchens,
general stores, and walk through an old log cabin that was hewn and
constructed during past shows. You will see craftsmen spinning
wool, quilting, carving ox yokes, making brooms, carving out
buckets and bowls, operating an old woodshop, and enjoying the
plaintive rhythm of authentic early American folk music. Outside,
you can wander through ‘Pos sum Holler,’ a reconstructed
country village with its blacksmith, pottery shop,
coppersmith’s shack and enjoy real old fashioned caramel
corn.
Then, drawn by the sounds and smells of the good old times, you
can walk through an old farm with chickens running loose (watch
your step), stick your head in the log smokehouse, help in the
verdant truck patch, buy some stone ground cornmeal, or stop and en
joy the wonderful warmth of the old cook stove as it busily cooks
the corn-bread and beans for dinner.
Now, as the sun gets hot, head out to the field where the old
Case steam engine and Red River Special threshing machine warm up
to the task of threshing wheat. The kids can jump up in the grain
wagon to let the wheat run down through their pants, or maybe make
some wheat chewing gum. And just over there men are hulling clover
on the Bird sell, and trying to start the old Ford-son tractor.
Just across the road, the portable saw mill is turning out
beautiful walnut, cherry, poplar, and sassafras boards. The lumber
is for sale, and hobbyists quickly place their orders before the
good stuff is all gone.
If you have had enough of the dust, smoke, and chaff, walk over
to the antique tractor building where dozens of beautifully
restored symbols of the good old days are on display. The farmers
there will even lie to you about how good they were, if you just
ask them!
Special features at the Pioneer Village include a toy tractor
show, the gigantic Farmers Day Parade, an authentic old time farm
auction and the daily drive around the fairgrounds by the old
tractors. If you’re lucky, you can jump on one of the
wagons.
Surely, all of this sounds like plain old fashioned farm fun. It
does, how ever, have a very serious purpose to tell our many
visitors about those glorious ‘golden times’ in American
agriculture, and remind them that their abundant and healthful
supply of food is a result of those millions of fanners, in times
past, who worked so hard to make our agriculture the envy of the
whole world!
Why don’t you plan on coming on over and seeing us at the
Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis next August 7 through 18? If you
would like more in formation, write or call Mauri William son, 4000
Morehouse Road, West La fayette, Indiana 47906, phone (317)
463-9829. We sure would enjoy having you!
Last year we received a letter from Kees Woudenberg,
Eendracht-straat 21, 3784 Ka Terschuur, Netherlands, who sent us a
copy of ‘De Klep,’ a Dutch engine magazine. Kees wrote,
‘This magazine is our club magazine with 2000 members (the
Netherlands is a small country). At our 16th International Historic
Festival (one of the largest shows in Europe), there were
approximately 1000 engines and 1500 tractors, and 25,000 visitors;
the next festival is July 20 and 21, 1996.’ At right is a
picture of one of Kees’ tractors, of which he says,
‘It’s Russian, made in 1968 in Leningrad; the engine is a
240 HP V8 14860 cc (somebody says it’s like a Caterpillar
engine). I bought it in East Germany and restored it completely in
two years.’
