Dayton Daily News & Radio’s ‘Joe’s
Journal’
Gaunt looking antique tractors, towering like primordial beasts
of prey, chugged and clattered down Main Street of Portland,
Indiana,-snaking their way cross town and into the beautifully
shaded Jay County Fairgrounds, lugging their burdens of popping gas
engines behind them.
It was the weirdest menagerie of historic agricultural Americana
ever to be paraded down the main thoroughfare of any midwest county
seat — and Port-landites and crowds from far and wide congregated
to witness the sights thereof.
Jaws dropped and old-timers shifted their cuds from cheek to
cheek while ‘young-uns’ gaped in awe at the strange
spectacle unwinding before them as if time had indeed moved
backwards – all marking the third annual reunion of the Tri-State
Gas Engine and Tractor Association, the largest in the nation.
It was a very hot and humid day-that 23rd of August. And I had
worked feverishly in the ‘pits’ on last-minute mechanical
adjustments on the ‘mighty Joe Dear Delco-powered garden
tractor that I, too, might join the parading extravaganza. But
unloading a little three-wheeled monster such as the Joe Dear,
single-handed, can have its difficulties — a situation which left
me just enough time and energy to grab my camera and get a picture
of the big parade, headed by Russ Flora’s lumbering Case
Tractor, as it was emerging through the county fair-ground
gate.
No sooner had the strange apparition made it entry, followed by
hasty un-hitchings and setting up of exhibits, than brawny-armed
Spark Plugs began fidgeting with carburetors and spinning fly
wheels, exploding the entire fairgrounds into a veritable symphony
of popping and banging gas engines.
‘This year we have more than twice the equipment we had last
year,’ announced head-Spark Plug, Woody Turner, President of
Tri-State Gas Engine and Tractor Association, as he surveyed the
grand panorama of hundreds of fellow Spark Plugs laboring over
tractors and engines to get the big show rolling. ‘Al together
we’ll be exhibiting about forty antique tractors and around
two-hundred and fifty gas engines of every variety and
vintage.’
FORERUNNER OF THE MODERN SMALL GARDEN TRACTOR – The little York
Tractor, manufactured by the Flinchbaugh Mfg. Co. of York, Penna.
back in 1910 was proudly displayed by owner, D.J. Hafer of Larue,
Ohio. Engineering foresight of that day provided double-clutch and
gearing for two speeds either forward or backward. ‘We’ve
gotten many an hour of belt work out of this little tractor over
the years,’ says Hafer.
But this w as only the basic ground-floor structure of the big
show for yet other Spark Plugs were already busy driving in
impressive line-ups of painted and polished historical vehicles
Model-T Fords, vintage Chevvies and Dodges, four-cylinder Buicks
culminated by a magnificent specimen of a 12-cylinder Lincoln
refurnished like new by Lowell Shreeve of Portland, Indiana.
All this in addition to the some eighty garden tractors
congregated on the fair grounds by more and more Spark Plugs for
the big Saturday night small-tractor pull. And the unscheduled
surprise of an unofficial tractor pull which transpired when Ralph
Ary and his half-size model Rumely Oil Pull decided to take on all
comers out pulling four small garden tractors with his well geared
three horse antique gas engine before the little fellows decided to
call it quits.
It was pure delight, meandering around among the large and
numerous flea market exhibits headed by that noble big-game hunter
and mountain climber, Gilbert Sheard of Middletown, Ohio, whose
display of historic publications, auto tires, antique lamps, steam
whistles and what-nots blended nostalgically with old-time
phonographs, crank-telephone, pendulum-clocks, crocks and jars
lining the rest of the gay Tri-State midway. For the serious
collector, there was such as the nationally-famous display of some
five-hundred historic pocket watches, representing thousands of
dollars in investment by non other than O. H. ‘Doc’
Schwanderman of Fort Recovery, Ohio.
But over and above the purely historic and mechanical aspects of
Tri-State was the brotherhood exhibited between gas engine bugs and
steam engineers, with Iron Men, Charlie Ditmer and Hugh Hartzell
brewing genuine homemade cop per ‘kittle’ apple butter with
one of the five steam engines on the grounds furnishing the heat to
cook the apple ‘schnitzels’.
For the stomach-weary, there were the genuine, full-course
thresher-filling dinners cooked and served by the loyal ladies of
the Rosary Society of the local Immaculate Conception Church of
Port land. For the soul-weary, spiritual food was provided at the
Sunday morning services without a single engine popping and all
Spark Plugs ‘tending as the organizations’ chaplain, the
Rev. Lillie Black Mote, abjured one and all to trod the
‘straight and narrow’ with an eye to ‘laying up
treasures in Heaven’…
‘And, in closing may I ask you men that, while enjoying your
engines this lovely day, let’s do so without taking the name of
the Lord in vain,’ reminded Chaplain Mote to which most men
complied for Tri-State is a wholesome organization dedicated to the
best in both engines and men.
As the big Tri-State show ground out Sunday afternoon, the
largest melee of both machines and men congregated from all over
the midwest to witness the most diverse operations of threshing,
saw milling and fan-testing that any such like organization of
Spark Plugs has ever put on. So great was the activity that one
could but limit his attention to the sights and sounds immediately
before him, unconscious of what was transpiring elsewhere on the
sprawling fairgrounds.
LAW ‘N ORDER WAS KEPT AT TRI-STATE ’68 – Everett L.
Moody of Muncie, Ind., bedecked in all the original decor of the
flicker-era Keystone Motorcycle Cop, kept constant prowl on the
grounds stamping out sin and evil. His 1912 Harley Davidson is
equipped with all the modern technical paraphernalia of
candle-stick telephone, beepers and buzzers to dispatch the law
promptly and efficiently.
Whether it was pumping water by an ancient Yellow Jacket
pump-jack or generating electricity by Delco light-plant for
overhanging bulbs, milling flour by gasoline engine, sawing boards
by McCormick-Deering, separating grain by Hart-Parr, whirring the
Baker Fan by Rumely Oil-Pull or just watching that old Super Huber
cutting circles in the grass without a driver it was all grinding
out simultaneously and one had to hustle from place to place to see
it all.
‘The Rumely people said that the seams of a belt should not
be more than three inches apart,’ yelled Spark Plug, Ralph
Horstman, over the steady chug of his Oil-Pull jerking the Baker
Fan at a good clip. And walking down along the flopping belt to
measure it, Horstman verified it wasn’t more than three inches
to the crowd of onlookers, as proof of his superb showmanship at
linging a ma chine up to its work.
There was the usual humor too that transpired ‘mongst Spark
Plugs at Tri-State. It was a heavy blow of iron on steel that
sounded as Spark Plug Horst man let go with a sledge-hammer onto
the big steel tire of Harold Ary’s huge Rumely Oil-Pull that
was just parading by. Whereupon Spark Plug Ary, almost swallowing
his cud at the din thereof, suddenly began cranking an old-time
siren improvised for such emergencies in the Rumely cab, summoning
Everett L. Moody, motorcycle cop of the Holly wood flicker-era,
racing on his 1912 Harley Davidson to restore law ‘n order.
One can well say that, what transpires annually round Tri-State
is what’s good for a modern world gone mad. For here it is that
Spark Plugs yea, even Iron Men can vent off their steam before
blowing their heads. It’s a kind of much-needed therapeutic
benefit get ting together like good Spark Plugs and doing just what
you’ve always wanted to do, but can’t get away with back in
the hometown neighborhood.
Glory — what a tonic to frazzled, modern-day nerves that need
unwinding!
Our hat is doffed to Tri-Staters, their Spark Plugs and their
engines. May you and yours keep on and on giving America just what
it needs, nursing it back to health and well-being by reminding us
of our glorious heritage.
