Central States Threshermen's Reunion - Pontiac IL 1992

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On Labor Day Weekend in 1992, on the way home from Rollag we stopped at Pontiac, Illinois at the Central States Threshermen's Reunion. Pontiac was to be the site of the 1993 Case Expo.

All photos are 35mm. The color photos are Kodachrome and the B&W photos are TMax-100.

Pontiac's courthouse is a beauty. I'm not too enthused about the replacement windows, but that's fixable if the county commissioners should ever decide to do so.

The 1992 Reunion featured Oliver and Hart-Parr Tractors.

Oliver purchased Hart-Parr, of Charles City, Iowa, during the great depression to acquire its line of high-quality internal-combustion tractors. Hart-Parr is best known for its rugged two-cylinder tractors, but in the 1920s the four-cylinder 28-50 was Hart-Parr's biggest tractor.

Hart-Parr pioneered in the gas tractor business and its earliest model acquired the nickname "Old Reliable" for its durability and reliabity in an era when internal combustion farm power was still very much experimental.

The Pontiac show hosted some of the finest steam traction engine restorations I've seen.

The massive two-cylinder International Titan tractor belongs to the American Thresherman Association, an organization dating to 1959. Their annual show is held at Pinckneyville, Illinois.

Silver King packed a lot of tractor into a small package, with features that were a few years ahead of a lot of the bigger makers.

Avery was one of the few makers who put their engines on a frame beneath the boiler, referred to as undermounted. They claimed that this design reduced stress on the boiler, and competitors claimed it made the engine more vulnerable to dust and dirt. The double-cylinder Avery engines are silky-smooth; I love to hear them under load.

Holt was one of the predecessors of Caterpillar. This crawler was built before differential clutches and brakes became the conventional steering mode for crawler tractors.

Avery's internal-combustion tractors used low-speed horizontally-opposed two- or four-cylinder engines. The cylindrical device at the front is the radiator; cooling water circulates through the vertical tubes, and the exhaust is directed up a smokestack inducing a draft that pulls cool air in around the tubes.

Twin City was a predecessor company of Minneapolis-Moline, which was later absorbed into White Industries.

One of several vintage gasoline lawnmowers on display

A rare 1893 center-crank J.I. Case steam traction engine.

A 15-horsepower International Harvester Mogul portable engine. Not many of these engines were built; for the most part, IH's biggest portable Moguls were 10HP. The Mogul was one of the best-engineered and -executed farm engines, comparing favorably with industrial engines of the era. Most farm engines were less expensively designed and built.

A single-cylinder Fairbanks Morse diesel engine powers a veneer mill

Aultman-Taylor tractors used four-cylinder inline horizontal engines that provided abundant smooth power. They were popular both on large farms and for commercial uses like road construction.

Plowing with a Rumely steam traction engine, built in La Porte, Indiana

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