We felt a little guilty there, sitting in our trailer with the
curtains drawn, watching our astronauts walk on the Moon last
August. Suddenly a knock came on our door and a hand reached in
with two boxes of genuine Kentucky fried chicken.
‘Here’s your Sunday dinner,’ smiled Frank Cornish,
exhibiting that old-time southern hospitality.
‘Oh thank you, Frank. How delicious this looks and
smells,’ we replied. ‘Would you care to step in a moment
and watch our astronauts walking on the Moon?’
‘No–my steam engine’s got those astronauts beat a mile.
But thank you just the same,’ replied he in his friendly
southern drawl.
How true–those words uttered by Frank Cornish, we suddenly
realized as we flipped off the switch to the ‘boob lube’,
stepped outside our trailer and once again entered the exciting
world of old-time engines popping and chugging. It took just a
second, our trip back from the vast, cold wastelands of the Moon
invaded by the grotesque, dehumanized earthlings of NASA, to the
friendly crowds who had come to see the Blue Grass Steam and Gas
Show at the Harrodsburg, Ky., fairgrounds. May we never again be
guilty of such folly, during so great an engine show.
‘Fun’ is the name of the game, always, whenever the Blue
Grass Boys put on their annual show at Harrodsburg. Just pure
fun–the joy of running your engines, whatever you happen to bring,
and the chance to hear all their exhausts without the noise
pollution of loudspeakers trying to out-do them. Oh yes, they have
their speakers, just for important announcements, after which they
are shut off in deference to the almighty engines, for which, after
all, the public comes to hear.
For, although the Italian-born, Boston-reared,
‘Kentuckian’, Carl Secchi, President of the Blue Grass
Show, is a great organizer with a main-spring running from his head
to his toes, he has that particular genius for planning his shows
with just the right balance–little fanfare, no parades with
emphasis on the men and their engines.
In other words, to say it more simply, there is less calling out
over the tree-top speakers ordering men to leave their engines and
march ‘goose step’ fashion thither and yon to participate
in a variety of distended operations. Each man is there to exhibit
and operate his engines and/or tractors–and that is what he
does.
One of the most unusual and welcome customs at the Blue Grass
Show is the daily siesta of the hosting engine men, indulged in
immediately following the noon lunch. For ‘us northerners’
it afforded a better digestion of the noontime ‘vittles’ as
well as provided a bit of leisurely rest, the better to invigorate
one to attack the afternoon agenda with more zest. After all men
come to the reunions to run and enjoy their engines– not to get
overcome with sun strokes and exhaustion long before the day is
over.
Although the Blue Grass Engine Club never boasts of being the
largest or making the most money from profits of their show, they
are quite cognizant of the fact that this year’s reunion was
much larger and more attended than last year’s, which was their
first.
‘We had over one-hundred and twenty-three gas engines this
year, four steam engines and four antique tractors,’ explains
President, Carl Secchi. ‘In addition, there were twenty flea
market dealers–many more than last year.’
Hisle Lutes of Winchester, KY., puts finishing touches to his
unique antique Tractor, powered by a 5-horsepower Hagan Gas Engine.
These engines were manufactured in Winchester, Kentucky over the
turn of the century.
‘Just the ladies of the organization alone sold over
five-hundred dollars’ worth of materials pertaining to our
hobby,’ says Secchi, possessing the Presidential diplomacy of
adequately recognizing the women’s lib. ‘That would include
such things as watch fobs, spark plug novelties, hats, plates and
educational-historical things.’
One of the most unusual exhibits at the Blue Grass Show was
especially dedicated to the history of the Hagan Gas Engine,–a
two-horse Hagan owned by Carl Secchi, a seven-horse owned by
Raymond Doolin and a ten-horse belonging to Herbert Duncan.
A fourth (lagan Engine furnished the power plant for a very
unique model gas tractor being shown by Hisle Lutes of the Lutes
Electric Co., Winchester, Ky.
‘These Hagan Gas Engines were made in Winchester, Ky.,
between 1897 and 1917,’ explains Carl Secchi. ‘These I
lagan people were masters of pattern making and their castings are
perfect. They had very good mechanical ideas, but the engines have
to be in perfect mechanical condition in every detail before
they’ll run right. They have very clever valve
arrangements.’
Another unusual piece of antique equipment was the Mud Hen,
manufactured by the C. H. & E. Mfg. Co. of Milwaukee, Wis., in
1928–an unusual pump of 6,000 gallons-per-hour capacity, powered
by a 2?-Horsepower Fuller and Johnson Engine.
1918 Holt built by Caterpillar Tractor Company for U. S. Ord.
Dept. owned by R. J. Vincent seen at Eastern Shore Show. Picture by
Dave Egan, R. D. 5, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055.
Unusual exhibit of Hagan Gas Engines, manufactured at
Winchester, Ky., were made up in a handsome display at Blue Grass
Show. Shown are Hagan engines, I. to r. 2 HP., 7 HP. and 10 HP.
President Carl Secchi shown beside middle engine.
This unit has a total weight of seven-hundred and sixty
pounds,’ explained Carl Secchi. ‘The manufacturer has been
very cooperative in giving us all the history and data on this
equipment, as well as original colors, as shipped, and so
forth.
It was clearly evident that the second annual Blue Grass Show
had far outgrown the previous year’s in both exhibits and
crowds attending. The length and breadth of the Mercer County
fairgrounds, at Harrodsburg, was crowded with a diversity of
internal combustion gas engines, both prototypes and models, from
all over the state of Kentucky as well as Indiana, Ohio and other
border states. Dotted generously throughout the sprawling reunion
were the antique cars–Model-T tourings and trucks, the
sleeve-valve Wyllis Knights of 1927, a LaSalle of 1925 vintage, and
many others representing the transportation evolution of early
American industry. And yet there was the regular steam threshing
for those who liked the smell of coal smoke and the feel of chaff
down the neck.
‘Carl Secchi has a wonderful spirit among these people,’
commented Wood-y Turner, President of the big Tri-State Gas &
Tractor Show, Portland, Ind., who possesses a rare genius for
sizing up an engine reunion. Turner had headed a group of visiting
Tri-Staters who had fetched along their engine trailers to add to
the exhibits.
Even Junior Sarver of Arcanum, Ohio, hurried down to Blue Grass
Show, as fast as his trailer would roll–just to augment the
exhibits with his unusual display of Deleo Light Plants and
assorted equipment.
‘Our show has now outgrown the fairgrounds here at
Harrodsburg,’ says Carl Secchi. ‘Next year we plan to have
our own private grounds out in the country–with adequate space for
growing exhibits.’
‘Our Blue Grass Association has now caught the eye of the
Mercer County authorities, and they are now behind us in getting
more land and cooperation,’ sums up Secchi–‘Next year we
will have space to exhibit a first-class sawmill and will even have
our own 75-horsepower Bessemer Oil Engine in operation–all
twenty-two tons of it.’
‘After all, we have many interested people down here that
don’t mind doing something–so why not,’ says he.
