Deanna Thompson rides her tractor down the track during the tractor pull event during the Threshing Bee on Saturday afternoon in Toledo.
A young spectator sits on a John Deere tractor Saturday afternoon as he watches the tractor pull competition during the 49th annual Threshing Bee in Toledo on Saturday afternoon.
Dick Roberts, of Napavine, rides his 1953 Super M tractor during the tractor pull competition at the 49th annual Threshing Bee in Toledo on Saturday afternoon
Ken Clark (left) and Fred Schultz, both from Woodland, ride their 1906 tractor at the tractor pull event during the 49th annual Threshing Bee in Toledo on Saturday afternoon. The century old tractor pulled with 12-horse power during the competition.
In a world where technology changes so quickly, Lewis Zion sees a great deal of comfort in celebrating the past.
Zion, master of the Cowlitz Prairie Grange, which will be hosting its 51st annual Threshing and Gas Show at the Robert Herron Farm near Toledo this coming weekend, said he believes it is important to remember how things once were done.
“It’s kind of like a lost art,” Zion said.
The Threshing and Gas show began as a threshing bee, a celebration of the old forms of farming equipment. Just as when it began, the event still includes threshing demonstrations. Every hour on the hour beginning at about 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, a steam-powered thresher will be threshing oats grown in the Toledo area. Threshing, separating the usable part of a grain from the rest of the plant, was once done by hand. Later, farm animals were used and well into the 1800s threshing was still mostly animal powered.
“Since we started growing grain somebody had to clean it,” Zion explained of the history of threshing.
Over the years, the Threshing and Gas Show event has also grown into a nod to Lewis County’s rich agricultural heritage. It kicks off Friday night with a tractor parade. Anyone wanting to take part in the parade can meet at Toledo High School by 7 p.m. Then the group will parade down Jackson Highway to the event space. During the weekend-long event there will be many tractors on display, including a collection of rare steel wheeled tractors.
“Probably one of the biggest draws now is the tractor pull,” Zion said. “That’s going on all Saturday and almost all of Sunday, too.”
The event also features a flea market where many vendors bring their old one-cylinder engines and steam powered machinery and give demonstrations. One frequent vendor brings a steam powered engine he uses to make forge work that is for sale.
“You never know what’s going to be going on in that aisle,” Zion said. “There’s always something going on for somebody.”
Steam power is another focus of the threshing and gas show. Zion said the 30 horsepower upright steam engine in the thresher is considered small by today’s standards (for example, the 2015 Smart Car is 70 horsepower) but was a huge engine in its day. Another point of fascination will be a steam fire pumper that was used on the 1906 San Francisco fire and has since has been a prop in many movies. The engine had to be almost completely rebuilt because salt water was run through it during the San Francisco fire when fresh water supplies ran low but it has been restored to working order and will be on hand giving demonstrations and shooting water for the crowd.
“There’s a lot of fascination with for steam. It has its down following,” Zion said.
