SPRING VALLEY -- Who are these people and what are they bringing to the Deer Creek Campgrounds each summer?

They bring log cabins, prairie halls and the most gosh-awful-looking silver-painted monstrosities which they call a courthouse dome.

They bring people with skills from bygone days, who fashion crafts long-forgotten.

They bring the most ungodly collection of tractors to be seen in the world. Tractors in all sizes, shapes and colors. Tractors that work and some that don't work and just sit there, baking in the sun.

They bring rock crushers, saw mills, oat threshing machines, hay balers, corn shellers and even a chain saw sculptor, who proceeds to operate at ear-splitting levels as he carves some object from a tree trunk, while sawdust spits a carpet of yellow all around.

The men who make this pilgrimage are everywhere, leaning on the fender of a tractor the color of a circus wagon, shaking their heads and gazing wistfully at the steering wheel and iron seat as if they could mount up and ride off in the sunset and be positively the happiest man in the world.

Next week, they will be at the Mower County Fair in Austin, showing off, bragging, nodding in understanding and raising their eyebrows in surprise.

Another antique tractor show just like the mother of all antique tractor shows that brings out the darnedst collection of men, women and machines.

Who are these people indeed?

Coming together to preserve history

They are organized and call themselves the Root River Antique Power Association.

The purpose of the association is to preserve farming history for generations to come. To do that, they recreate it every July.

A part of that farming history is the "Memory Lane" or Heritage Center.

It boasts a farmhouse with a porch, a printing shop, barber shop, general store and snack shack.

There is a full-service gas station, township hall, cabin and more.

Soon, the Mower County Courthouse dome will be erected at the Heritage Center. Built atop the1844 courthouse in downtown Austin, the dome languished at the Mower County Fair grounds until finding a permanent home at the Heritage Center.

In the case of the township hall, it belongs to Frankford Township, which constructed a new one.

The Norwegian immigrants' cabin has now come full-circle. It was built in 1852 near the Bear Creek Lutheran Church. Decades later its owners gave it to the Mower County Historical Society and it was a popular attraction at the fairgrounds.

However, the cabin had to make way for a new $160,000 public restroom and the Root River Antique Power Association came to its rescue.

Tractor choice carries on

to the next generation

But the main attraction each summer is tractors. Small ones, big ones, old ones and older ones. Tractors of every color.

This year, the 20th annual Root River Antique Power Association show, which was July 18-21, featured Case tractors.

Earl Butenhoff is the president of the Northland Case Collectors Club.

Mention Case and Mr. Butenhoff tells all.

Jerome Increase Case started the J. I. Case Company in 1842, making this the 160th anniversary year of the company.

Lowell Klinepier is one of the true Case believers. "They call me 'Pepsi' for the obvious reason. I drink a lot of it and Case is my tractor," he said.

Klinepier brought two of his classic Case tractors to the Root River show

"That's the tractor for me. I still farm with Case. That's why by dad farmed with, too," he said.

Klinepier brought a 1976 Case to the show that was painted red, white and blue in honor of the bicentennial of America

that year.

"I'm proud to be an American," he said, echoing the Lee Greenwood country music anthem.

In a time when all of America, it seems, is wearing the colors of the flag since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the man they call "Pepsi" was a walking, talking and tractor-driving advertisement.

Don Livingston of Austin also collects Case tractors.

So proud of his hobby, Livingston organized a first-ever tractorcade across Mower County to help publicize the Root River Show this year.

"It take all kinds to collect antique tractors," he said.

That observation was borne out by A. J. Slowinski.

The Blooming Prairie youth, fresh-faced with closely-cropped air, wore a T-shirt and blue jeans with his leather shoes.

Not that it mattered, but there was a ring in his ear and it was not a misplaced spare part to this tractor.

The son of Jeff and Deidre Slowinski of Blooming Prairie drove a classic 1936 John Deere "A" model tractor in an antique tractor pull at the Root River show.

It was painted a bright lavender and emblazoned with country music star Kenny Chesney's hit song lyrics "She thinks my tractor's sexy." A scantily clad model was painted next to the lyrics on the customized side covers of the tractor engine.

Asked about the unique paint job, the teenager said he did it to impress his girlfriend and "Yes, some people tease me about it."

The tractor looked even more outlandish sitting next to a classic 1938 John Deere "G" model tractor that, purists be praised, was conventionally painted.

Not many lovers of all things railroad left

The tractor types are benevolent toward the railroad types. Both belong to the Root River Antique historical Power Association. A trio of men, who could have been gandy dancers in other lives.

Jerry Skifter, Reg Yule and Roger Byrne bring their skills and curiosity about railroads to the Timberline Railroad at the Deer Creek Campgrounds.

During the antique tractor and engine show, they are showing up their model railroad.

Skifter's live steam Mogul locomotive and diesel Santa Fe engines are the cornerstone of the growing fleet of trains. His father, Ralph, built them.

Today, there are three bridges and more than 10,000 railroad ties connecting the original 1,000 feet of track. By next summer, another 1,500 feet of track will be laid

Byrne paid homage to the volunteers who helped the trio of Skifter, Yule and he do the bulk of the work on the Timberline Railroad weaving through a grove of trees at the Deer Creek Campgrounds.

"It's a lot of work and you have to love railroads and trains. Fortunately, there are a few of us left," he said.

Tractors are the main attraction at the show

But, the Root River Antique Power Association's show is first and foremost about tractors.

Sure, Lynette Bruggeman of Austin attracted a crowd at the Heritage Center farm house, where she demonstrated the fine art of weaving.

A smart and talkative woman dressed like Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, sitting on a porch in the shade and pedaling a spinning wheel should attract attention. It's pure and simple Americana.

But tractors is what they come for each year. and tractors is what the Root River Antique

Historical Power Association is all about.

How can anyone ignore the Big 4-30 made by the Gas Tractor Company of Minneapolis and called the Giant Horse or the Prairie Giant when its 30 horsepower engine propelled pistons that were 1 7/8 inches in diameter with a 6 1/2 inch bore and an 8 inch

stroke and weighting a mere 22,000 miles and able to double disk 1,480 acres of prairie soil and plant 1,500 acres with flex, while the entire county came out to watch.

It's a cliche, but they do not make them like that anymore.

Put your biggest, baddest John Deere along side the Prairie Giant and, modern technology aside, the old-timer looks tough as the steel it is made of.

Its owners, Steve and Sylvia Bauer, must have a reason for owning such a machine.

Pepsi, A.J., Don, Steve, Sylvia and all the others. Not a one of them out of the ordinary except their passion for old tractors.

Who, then, are these people?

Eleanor Crane knows.

She says the love affair with tractors began with divine intervention.

"What a wonderful day, when God put the seed of the love of farming into the hearts and minds of a few men," she said.

"As they gathered in their barns, they reminisced of the days gone by when they were using horses for power to move the small plows and harrows to work the land," she said. "The vision of the progress being made as they saw the steam engines and the little small gas engines being replaced by the larger and more efficient gas powered and even electric motors would start a fire of curiosity.

"As they talked they saw the need to instill into the minds of the youth of the country a different way of life; the simple way that farming once was."

In other words, they were visionaries, who looked back and saw the future.

People didn't want to forget what got them here.

The visions come in the brightest hues of a rainbow and include old men in bib overalls and teenagers with rings in their ears and all others, too.

All people with a love for farm history.

The Root River Antique Historical Power Association wears a coat of many colors like a badge of honor.

Agricultural history never had a better guardian.

Lee Bonorden can be reached at 4343-2232 or by e-mail at :mailto:lee.bonorden@austindailyherald.com