The Geauga County Historical Society Century Village Museum announces the Back In Time Power Show from July 29-31 from 8 AM to 5 PM each day. Step back in time as we showcase tractor and historical equipment of all kinds in a beautiful period setting. There will be a daily parade of equipment, flea market, barrel train, live demonstrations, hit/miss engines and children’s activities. Food will be available from the Back 40 BBQ of Middlefield.
You might have heard that the old-time tractor and equipment show that has gone on for so many years at the Century Village was no more, has ended and moved to a new location up in Lake County. Well, hold on now, not so fast! In fact, the Historical Engine Society’s association with Century Village has ended and they have now moved on to Lake Farm Park in Lake County. I’m sure they had their reasons—bigger venue, bigger audiences. They’re all good people. I’ve met them.
The end of the tractor show, however, provoked a resounding outcry and response from the local community. It seems that moving to a bigger venue much further away is not acceptable to local people. Let’s talk small town Burton here, Amish country, Amish life, Amish values, maple syrup, country living, big farms, cows, pigs, chickens, horses, and buggies. If preserving the past here in Burton isn’t a major thread woven into the fabric of everyday living, what exactly is? Preserving the past goes on despite the comings and goings of daily living. You might say that the past is preserved here despite the intrusion of the present.
Century Village has responded to the local outcry to keep the Old Time Tractor and Equipment show of our own here in Burton, featuring our local old-time tractors complete with a daily parade around the Burton Square. Of course, some Model “A” Fords from the Northern Ohio Model “A” Club will be there just like they always have been. They’ll be there on Saturday the 30th. You just can’t move the old-time tractor show away from the local people.
Take a ride down the back roads, the old roads in one of your antique cars, you will see plenty of old tractors and farm equipment scattered around this community and still in use. I just did that this past Sunday in my 1969 VW Beetle.(Granted it is not super old but it is 53 years old and an antique). We cruised the backroads and highways of Geauga County. We were looking for spots to fish, maybe drop a line from the banks. I saw a couple nice Old John Deeres in the fields making hay cutting it and bailing it. And, of course, I saw the ever-present old Ford 2Ns, 8Ns and 9Ns at just about every other farm you come to. They never die, just keep getting fixed, rebuilt, and put back into service. They’re immortal.
Personally, I hate to see an old car or old tractor sitting out beside the barn or shed wasting away in the sun, rain, snow, hail. I am reminded of a place about two mile north of Ravenna on Infirmary Road. Out in front of the yard are two, maybe three, ancient tractors in very deteriorated condition, with trees and shrubs growing out of them, under them. Yard ornaments they are! Somehow that strikes me as irreverent. Now, to each his own, as they say, and maybe many people find it … interesting or amusing. But it bugs me. I think it’s a shame. Maybe it’s because I tend to see these machines as more than pieces of iron. I see them as having souls—magical mystical thinking.
I have a near 75-year history—as far back as I can remember as a child, of being involved with antique vehicles of all kinds. My grandfather, a professional restorer himself, had a model of an ’03 something or another horseless carriage displayed on a coffee table. I was captivated and fascinated with it. The time was, fifty years. ago that, in southern Ohio where we lived while I finished college at OU, I was told of, and found a 1930s John Deere languishing in a garden plot a good way back off the road and across a stream. It was not a big farm tractor, rather it was about the size of a modern-day Kubota you might see in big yards. It had four wheels on the ground, not just a tricycle three configuration because southern Ohio was quite hilly and four wheeled tractors were much more stable. It did not have electric start which made its vintage likely from the early to middle twenties. No, it was a hand cranker, like the Ford Model “T”s. The guy that owned it said it would start if I dressed the points and primed the carburetor (got spark and fuel). I worked on it, and got it to fire a few times. I think I bought it for about $20. A set of old discs and a plow came with it. I brought it all home (in several trips) in my 1960 Ford Pickup. I got it running but ultimately transplanted an old Chevy six cylinder into it. Hand cranking got old. I plowed the garden with it for couple years. Then a Ford 2N came along and I sold it to a neighbor. Yep, I’d like to have that old John Deere back again. I might even put it back to a hand cranker again. It sure would look good in the Tractor Show at Century Village and I bet I’ll see one like it at that show.
I’ll be at the Back in Time Power Show at Century Village. When you see the Model “A”s, one with a Villager sign on the door under a tree at the Tractor Show in Burton, stop in and chat. I’d like to feature your old car or tractor in coming articles.
