Skip Dufour, left, and Robert Willis — the two original founders of the Upper Peninsula Steam and Gas Engine Association — stand before a roughly 90-year-old threshing machine ahead of the 50th-annual show, which takes place Friday through Monday. (R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press)
ESCANABA — The Upper Peninsula Steam and Gas Engine Association will host its 50th-annual event over Labor Day weekend starting Friday at the U.P. State Fairgrounds in Escanaba.
The gathering of collectors, tinkerers, mechanics, farmers, artisans, enthusiasts and oglers provides a glimpse into history and has intrigued the public from its inception. Now its records have gone to print and are available for purchase.
The association’s objectives are to preserve, restore, enjoy and display early steam engines, tractors, gas engines and associated equipment. The closely affiliated Antique Village celebrates even more aspects of history from the turn of the century.
“In addition to providing a loose-knit organization for members, the association also provides a service to the public in that it is sponsoring an annual exposition of early early agricultural equipment to which everyone is invited,” an August 1976 news release states.
Documentation of the early days of the club, its Labor Day event and the formation of the Antique Village appear in a recently released book compiled by Michael Gibson with the help of dozens of others.
Michael Gibson poses with the book he compiled with help from the U.P. Steam and Gas Engine Association about the first 50 years of the club’s history. Proceeds from sales of the book all go toward the association. (R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press)
In addition to all the regular activity of the show — a flea market, the shops and working displays in the Antique Village, the chainsaw competition, the opportunity for people to drive their first tractor, the “parade of power,” live music and more — copies of the book and other memorabilia commemorating the event’s “golden jubilee” will be sold at the show, which takes place Friday through Monday. Proceeds go directly to the association.
Gibson, who has only been a member of the association since 2018, said that he wasn’t sure why the group asked him to write the book, but others were certain he was the man for the task.
Beginning in October 2023 — after debating for a month or so whether he would take on the project — Gibson began collecting information, letters and photographs from the club and old newspapers. His past experience has been in education, mental heath and community organization; his trades knowledge was in electronics, so he had to learn about tractors from the other members, he said.
Gibson conducted dozens of interviews with people involved with the evolution of the association. Even in the past year and a half that Gibson worked on the book, some of those people he spoke with have since passed away.
“This book is preserving the history of the club for the last 50 years,” said Jim Yoder, current president of the U.P. Steam and Gas Engine Association. “It needed to get written down, because these gentlemen (he gestured to Skip Dufour and Bob Willis) are the ones that know what happened. And if we don’t get this done now, there’s no way to go back and recreate it.”
The vintage, working sawmill in the Antique Village on the Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds is one attraction to be seen at the U.P. Steam and Gas Engine Association show. (Daily Press file photo)
Dufour and Willis were the two who concocted the idea of the steam and gas engine club and rounded up the other founding members. The first show took place where the Chamber of Commerce building is now and charged a $1 entry fee.
“We were actually surprised how many local people wanted to come and just see what we had,” Dufour said of the 1976 show. “The thing just kind of kept getting bigger and bigger, got more and more members.”
The first year it was on Sept. 18 and 19; afterwards, it has been scheduled for Labor Day weekend.
Yoder pointed out that when the show first started, a large percentage of people in the area were farmers. Now, many young people don’t know how crops and textiles and meats make it from fields to homes and stores, but the expo provides education in a hands-on way.
“If you pick up a book, you read about steam engines and threshing and what they did,” Dufour said. “You can come here. You can actually touch the machine, see the steam engine, run the separator –”
U.P. Steam and Gas Engine Association members Jim Yoder, Mike Gibson, Skip Dufour and Bob Willis pose with antique machines that have arrived at the U.P. State Fairgrounds for the 50th-annual show of the U.P. Steam and Gas Engine Association. (R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press)
“Get the chaff blown all over you,” Yoder interjected with a grin.
“– and watch threshing the way it was done, you know, 100 years ago,” Dufour finished.
Gibson said he was struck by the hard work of everyone involved with getting the association going, their dedication to the notion of preserving history from about 1890 to 1930, the constant attraction of new members and the fun had by everyone involved.
“You don’t work with this stuff if you don’t love it,” Willis said. “But without organizations like this, it won’t be long before it’s all gone.”
The club’s efforts have been successful — members reported that young people who began coming to the show as children remain enthusiastic and that membership spans multiple generations. The passion of the individuals involved in the association and the curiosity of attendees over the past half-century have kept the knowledge of Midwest farming history alive.
U.P. Steam and Gas Engine Association President Jim Yoder sharpens the saw blade of the mill on the U.P. State fairgrounds in June 2024. (Daily Press file photo)
Humbled by the experience of learning everything that went into the formation of the association, Gibson said compiling the book was a lot of work but a lot of fun.
Like the show itself, the book “kept growing and growing” as material was gathered from members and the Daily Press archives. Finally, barely a month ago, 500 copies of the book, titled “The Upper Peninsula Steam & Gas Engine Association: A Narrative History,” were printed at Richard’s Printing in Escanaba.
For the 50th time, association members are ready to welcome to the show people like Bill Bartles, a 95-year-old from Sheboygan, Wis., who will be presented with a plaque this weekend to acknowledge his 50 years of attendance; youngsters whose interest in antique machinery has already been sparked at previous exhibitions; and newcomers who may want to tour the agricultural museum or operate a tractor for the first time.
The show opens at 9 a.m. all four days. From Friday through Sunday, it closes at 5 p.m.; on Monday, it concludes at 3 p.m.
At 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, the show will host book-signings with Gibson. Funds from book sales go not to the author but to the association.