Vintage Thresher Among Features At Old Timers' Days
Get ready for the River Hills Antique Tractor Club’s annual Old Timers Days on May 28 and 29, 2016.
Down on the Dale Prevallet farm during the summer of 2015 a group of club members and family was cutting wheat with an antique wheat binder that Dale bought in Minnesota several years ago. The folks that harvested the wheat at the Prevallet farm included: Dale Prevallet, his son Brian and Brian’s wife Jane, Dale Bronenkant, Roy Lohmann, Jerry Davis, Tom Ballman and his nephew Hunter Pritchard, Jerome Renner, Doug McMillian with his daughter Melissa and her children Dakota and Macy Ogle.
The brand name of the wheat binder is Minnesota. It was pulled by Dale’s vintage D10 Allis-Chalmers, and the wagon was pulled by Dale’s D14 Allis-Chalmers.
The Minnesota brand has an interesting production history. Back in the early 1900’s inmates at the Minnesota State Penitentiary manufactured a variety of farm equipment such as wagons, wheat binders, and other small implements. Not only did the inmates learn a trade, these items, when sold, helped support the expense of their time behind bars. This is how the Minnesota brand wheat binder came to be.
The bundles of wheat harvested by the Minnesota wheat binder at the Prevallet farm will be stored on a wagon in a shed until ready for the 2016 Old Timer’s Days. At that time the wheat will be run through a vintage threshing machine powered by a classic tractor, and then the straw will be baled by an antique baler. The wheat and straw bales will be returned to Dale. ∆
