By Sherry Stirling as published in The Dalles Visitor 2003

On the second weekend of every August, the field near Palmdale is transformed with tractors, steam engines, people and music as the Almelund Threshing Show comes to life. Palmdale is located about seven miles northwest of Taylors Falls on Highway 95. This year it will be held August 8, 9 and 10.

The Almelund Threshing Show started in 1955 and has continued each year except one. According to a story related in 1966 by Almelund resident Everett Nelson, it all began with an ad he had seen in the local paper. A farmer from Amery, Wisconsin had placed the ad inviting people to come to his farm to see him thresh his stacked grain with steam power. “It was a nice Sunday afternoon,” said Everett, “so I drove over the river, parked the car, and went to watch.”

The following Monday, Everett went to the local tavern, owned by Art Abrahamson. He told about the events at the Amery farm. “We all got to talking about the possibility of doing something like that as a fund-raiser for the volunteer Almelund Fire Department. Art Carl Almquist spoke up, ‘Why don’t you come to my farm and thresh grain?’ And the idea was born.

The first event was just one afternoon and the North Branch High School band played for entertainment. The volunteer firemen hired a steam threshing machine from Dennis Magnuson’s Yesteryear Farm Museum. Grain was stacked as it came out to the machine. The men carried the grain sacks on their backs from the threshing machine to the granary and up the stairs, just as in the “old times.”

A keg of beer was cooled in the stock tank, and after the job was done, every one celebrated with the cold beer. The beer was free the first year, although there was a donation jar. “They did that for about four years in a row and never quite made enough money to pay for the beer,” said Carl, “The fifth year, they started charging for it.”

About 5000 people attended the first threshing shows. There were no porta-potties in those days, folks just used the nearby cornfield.

In its early years, the threshing show was held at various local farms: Art Carl Almquist, Ray Johnson, Vernold Johnson, Emery Swenson, Art Abrahamson, and Maynard Mohn (the old Albert O. Rydberg farm). Now, in a permanent location, the show has modern restroom facilities, lasts three days, and gets bigger every year.

When visiting the show, many old-timers are reminded of their youth and the excitement of threshing and seeing all the tractors, steamers, and activities. Birt Nelson, born July 1882, recalls:

“The summer I was 14, I became one of the threshing crew and was I ever proud! Pa was more interested in the weather and the price and yield of grain, but the crew was mostly interested in what the womenfolk prepared to eat. When the noon whistle blew, everyone scrambled for the house. First stop was at the long wooden bench near the kitchen door on which stood several tin washbasins for removing the dust and chaff.

The crew would slop water on their dirty faces, coming up snorting and blowing. The younger fellows had a “community comb” placed on the bench for any sprucing up the cared to do. Many times the neighbor women would come to help prepare the big meal. The neighbor girls were good at helping in the kitchen during threshing especially when they had their eyes on some good-looking member of the crew.

These girls would bring in huge bowls of mashed potatoes, boats of rich gravy, tureens of vegetables rich with butter and cream sauces. Great mounds of roasting ears of corn, freshly picked, came steaming from the kettle. Then came the huge platters of meat or fried chicken. After the main meal, several kinds of pie were brought in right from the oven.”

Harvesting, threshing, and winnowing were separate distinct operations in the handling of small grains until the advent of the reaper machine, the most notable of which was built and tested by Cyrus McCormick in 1831.

Harvesting was the breaking loose of the kernels of grain from the straw and chaff, often done by beating the grain stalks with flails or treading with a sledge pulled behind horses or oxen.

Winnowing, usually done with a sieve-type basket, was the separation of the kernels from the chaff. This was done simply by pouring the grain back and forth between two baskets and letting the breeze blow away the chaff or by tossing the grain into the air and catching it as the breeze blow away the chaff.

During the 1850’s, reaper machines revolutionized agriculture on the Midwest prairies.

With a McCormick reaper, two men and a horse could do work of five expert men with scythes and cradles. By 1860, more than 80,000 machines were operating west of the Appalachians and harvesting about 70% of the wheat crops.

Following the Civil War, portable steam engines became more available and by 1870 self-propelled steam engines were beginning to be mass-produced. In 1872, and “epizootic fever” epidemic spread throughout horses in Minnesota and farmers were forced to contract with steam engine threshing crews to get the crops out of the fields and off to market.

Moving the steam engines from farm to farm was an adventure. They were big, noisy, and weighed about 20,000 pounds. They frequently spooked horses and traveled quite slowly - only about two or three miles per hour. Sparks from the engines were dangerous, often setting fire to the straw during the threshing process. Even more dangerous was the steam box. The fire in the firebox had to be fed the right amount of fuel and the water level in the boiler kept at an adequate level of the boiler would explode - sending the engine, boiler, and operator into the air with disastrous consequences for all. But they were economical to operate. According to one source, harvesting wheat with a horse-drawn combine cost $1.75 an acre in 1890’s while a steam–powered rig could do the same job for 25 cents.

Charles Hart and Charles Parr, considered the fathers of the gasoline tractor, built their first tractor in 1902. By 1920, there were 166 tractor companies turning out more than 200,000 internal combustion tractors each year and the production of steam engines had dwindled to almost nothing. J.I. Case, the world’s largest steam engine manufacturer, made its last steamer in 1926.

The Almelund Threshing Show provides an opportunity to see many of the old tractors in action. There are many other activities to see and do at the Almelund Threshing Show as well. In addition to the threshing, tractor pulls, tractor parades, and small engine machine demonstrations, there are pioneer folk artists demonstrating their crafts – spinners, weavers, sock makers, and wood carvers.

A whole village has been recreated. There is a mercantile store, a blacksmith shop and a log barn.

The grounds is home to the historic 1876 wooden Chisago County Courthouse, which was moved off its site in Center City to make way for the new Government Center in 1990. Adjacent to the Historic Courthouse is the Clover Blossom School, built in the 1880’s, which was moved to the grounds in December, 2001.

Tractor and horse drawn wagon rides give those who grow weary from walking a break to see the grounds and events. There is also a huge flea market area – probably the largest in Chisago County!