Last weekend was the 47th annual threshing bee in Butterfield MN. This is one of the bigger shows I’ve been to. The show takes place in Voss Park right in Butterfield. It’s a very nice park with many trees and a lake nearby. It has a Pioneer town in the park with many old buildings and shops. There is live entertainment in the form of Bluegrass, Gospel and Country music through out the weekend. There is a parade daily. Many folks come for the whole weekend and camp right in the park.
The featured brand of tractor for this show was Cockshutt which was a Canadian tractor. Much more history of Cockshutt available here. The park was chocked full of steam engines of all sizes. As I said, this show is pretty big and there are demonstrations of all manner going on all day. Sawmills being powered by steam engines, threshing with steam engines, broom making, blacksmith shop with smiths working steel, candle making, print shop and so on.
It’s really a wonderful show put on in a wonderful small town in Southwestern MN.
On to the photos.
Cockshutt Tracotrs greet you at the entrance
Threshing
Threshing
Saw Mill
Grist mill where grain is ground
Belle City threshing machine
Looking down the road in the park with a lot of steam engine smoke
Tractor used for threshing and a straw stack
Buckeye Oil Engine with a sense of scale. It’s BIG
Buckeye Oil Engine
Blacksmith making a horseshoe
A small saw mill
Tractors galore
Gone fishin’
This looks like a great show in a beautiful setting. I think I attended this back in the late 70s. Was it going then? Did you take any photos of the print shop?
Yes, it was well underway by the late 70’s. This was the 47th annual. It started in ’67. Some history at the bottom of this page on how it came about. http://www.butterfieldmn.com/threshing_bee.html
I did get some print shop photos from this and other shows. I may put them together in a post. It just dawned on me now, why you would ask about the print shop 🙂