The Santa Fe Trail Center, Larned, will host its annual Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show on Saturday and Sunday. The show will feature antique tractors and gas engines as well as classic and antique automobiles. Many new activities and demonstrations will be featured this year along with favorite demonstrations and kids’ events from the past.
An exciting new activity will be a medallion hunt with a prize of $250 to the lucky person who can figure out the clues. Everyone wishing to participate in the hunt needs to come into the museum’s lobby to register. There is no additional charge to participate. Clues will be posted after each anvil shoot on both Saturday and Sunday.
There will be three scheduled anvil shoots and two scheduled wheat threshing and corn shelling demonstrations each day of the event. Saturday will also feature a parade of tractors and automobiles at 10 a.m. into downtown Larned with the parade going down Broadway.
Sunday activities will begin at 9 a.m. with a non-denominational worship service in the historic Escue Chapel on the museum’s grounds. Everyone is invited to attend. The ever popular harnessing and plowing demonstration using draft horses and mules will begin on Sunday at 12:30 pm. The Tractor Pull competition with cash prizes, also a crowd favorite, will start at 1 pm that day.
A cash prize of $100 will be awarded for Best of Show to the classic or antique car or truck receiving the most votes throughout the weekend.
A Kids’ Korral Petting Zoo and Treasure Hunt will be a new activity for this year’s show. It will be featured from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. In addition, other kids’ events are also full of fun and are set for both days. Hunting for coins in a tank filled with corn has scheduled times but the hunt continues over most of the weekend. Class in the one-room schoolhouse complete with teacher is scheduled twice on Saturday and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday. A kids’ pedal pull will take place Saturday only, beginning at 1 p.m. Punkin’ Chunkin’ for all ages will be held at 4 p.m. on Saturday and again at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday. The first pumpkin is free with additional punkin’s for chunkin’ at $1 each. Barrel Train Rides will be available all day both days.
Live music will fill the museum’s east gallery for visitors’ enjoyment. Popular with last year’s crowd, The Wind Chimes will again perform gospel, country and patriotic songs from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. In the west gallery, the Boot Hill Model Railroad Club will set up a fantastic display of model trains and will have them running throughout the weekend.
Temporary exhibits displayed in the museum’s galleries include “A World of Words,” showcasing artifacts of communication including writing, printing and items from early post office days. A traveling exhibit, “Continuing the Tradition: Mexican American Folk Art,” explores traditions which are practiced by Mexican Americans in Kansas today. It includes 20 framed color photographs.
The Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Admission to the Show is $4 for ages 16 and over with those under age 16 admitted free of charge.
TEAMWORK at the Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show
Wheat Threshing
Wheat harvest in Kansas is a great experience and the Wheat Threshing Demonstration, sponsored by Carr Auction and Real Estate, is one of the grandest agricultural spectacles to see from noon to 3 p.m. on on Oct. 10 and 11 at the Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show near Larned.
The wheat for this year’s show has already been prepared the old-fashioned way with David Welch on a vintage binder pulled by Larry Carr driving an open-cab tractor. They were assisted by G.L. VonFeldt & Kevin VonFeldt for gathering the bundles and standing them in shocks. This impressive demonstration of teamwork was done without fanfare in June. This teamwork will be a part of the Old-fashioned Wheat Threshing Demonstrations on Saturday and Sunday October 10 and 11 as the wheat is hand fed onto a conveyer into the antique thresher to separate the kernels from the straw. At one time, the huge stationary machines were so costly they needed to be shared among a group of farmers. Jeff Delaney is “amazed at how technology changes things. They used to gather the crop to take it to the machine to be threshed and today we take the machines to the crop.” Also, today’s machines “combine” all the steps of harvesting and threshing together.
The antique thresher used at the Tired Iron Show was bought by brothers Mutt and Jack Delaney from an individual in Wilson and was not operational. After spending time getting it ready to go they had a trial run with some straw bales and made a few more minor adjustments with the help of Mutt and Jack, Jeff Delaney, Jake Delaney and Duane Meitle. It has been used for demonstrations at Ness City Old Settler Days and in previous years at the Larned show. This machine has now been donated by Mutt and Jack Denlaney to the Santa Fe Trail Center to be displayed in the Dale and Melba Woods Museum Addition.
Everyone will enjoy watching the teamwork of Wheat Threshing that celebrates the ingenuity of the pioneers of Kansas who tamed the prairies with determination and fortitude. Bring some of your own “willing fortitude” and you might be able to have a photo taken of you putting some wheat into the thresher.
Kid’s Corn Coin Hunt
The Kid’s Corn Coin Hunt that has long been a favorite activity at the Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show and this year is sponsored by Randy Fry with Ralph Baird Motors, Inc.
So simple, yet so much fun: put in place a large metal tank courtesy of Doerr’s Metal, fill it with rich golden corn, and make it even “richer” by dumping in a supply of coins. Add a group of youngsters and let them dig in the corn to their hearts content. The Kid’s Corn Coin Hunt is supervised to avoid too many kids at a time and to make sure they do take turns. No one minds taking turns because believe it or not, a supply of coins is added several times throughout the day both Saturday and Sunday. To honor the sponsorship by Ralph Baird Motors a few special “vintage car” toys will be hidden in the corn this year.
Duel in the Dirt
The Tractor Pull at the Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show, sponsored by First State Bank and Trust Company, does not include any brake-mashing turns. Instead it is the POWER to pull a sled with a system of gears to move the weight over the axles for progressively greater resistance to equal as much as 65,000 lbs. This is a 1/8 mile dirt track with a payout of $50 and $25. It is not a new thing for farmers to challenge one another to contests. Many times it was a quiet comparison of how much each field had produced. Then began an interesting challenge of who had the strongest horses and then the most powerful tractors. It may have begun with seeing how far they could drag a barn door along the ground with spectators recruited to jump on as it passed to add weight. Spectators are no longer needed on the sled but it is always an adventure as the Tractor Pull produces a great deal of noise and smoke and throws dirt everywhere. Viewing stands will be set up at the Santa Fe Trail Center for the Tractor Pull.
The Power Pulling begins with the ground being prepared by Rainbolts under the supervision of Doug Springer. The sled is loaned by Gerald Oetken and the event is run by Jack Link with announcing by Carl Immenschuch. The Tractor Pull participants bring their own tractors and pay an entry fee.
Base Needs Strength and Stability
Anvil Shooting will be demonstrated during the Santa Fe Trail Tired Iron Show. The Anvil Shoots are sponsored by Great Bend Farm Equipment. The scheduled shoots are 9:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sunday. The team that comes to this event every year is Larry and Melody Freeman and Gary Freeman. These enthusiasts have taken this family tradition to area and national championships and currently hold the world record for traditional anvil shooting with 244 feet. Scoring includes 1 point for every foot the top anvil goes up in the sky, minus 3 points for every foot away from the base.
The huge Ka-bloom is a big draw for the enthusiastic spectators that safely view from outside 150 feet of open area. The parts for the huge Ka-bloom are a base anvil (used by blacksmiths) weighing 126 pounds, a “shooters anvil” weighing 104 pounds, a half pound of black gunpowder, and a high tech sealant – peanut butter. A fuse is lit and the flyer rockets more than 150 feet into the air, accompanied by a thunderous smoky blast of the black powder. Spectators view from outside 150 feet of open area. This is a controlled shoot with the anvil landing within 6–10 feet of the blast. Afterward everyone is invited to inspect the anvils and visit with the team.
The final shot at last years Tired Iron Show landed exactly on top of the base which is very unusual. The Kansas Anvil Shooter Team has hit the base anvil or the base plate 7 times during competition. If these pros had been in a sanctioned competition it would have given them a major point bonus.
The Tired Iron Show is held on the grounds of the Santa Fe Trail Center, 2 miles west of Larned on Highway 156. For more information call 629-285-2054 or check the website at www.santafetrailcenter.org.
