Spring event added to the schedule
There is always much interest at Tuscarawas Valley Pioneer Power Association steam shows.
The upcoming Tuscarawas Valley Pioneer Power Association’s Dover Steam Show in August at the Tuscarawas County Fairgrounds will mark the 60th show the group has held. The TVPPA was formed Oct. 1, 1963, and their first steam show was held the next year.
A one-day event has been added for June 1 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the TVPPA’s land in Navarre. Anything old is welcome including gas engines, tractors, steam engines, cars, trucks and more. Also, they will hold a pull for stock garden tractors. All exhibitors must be a member of the group, but memberships will be available for purchase at the event.
The address for the June 1 event is 8770 Day Ave. SW in Navarre, and the public is invited to attend.
“We have a Boy Scout troop that will be taking care of our food stand that day. We truly enjoy helping our Boy Scouts and FFA chapters that come in and volunteer their time for their service hours, which is great,” said Emily Weldon, president of the TVPPA.
Weldon enjoys being a member of the TVPPA and participating in the Dover Steam Show. It’s no secret why the events are so popular.
“It’s love of family, love of friends and love of antiques. I actually started coming to this show when I was 2 years old and have been there ever since,” Weldon said, adding there are many fourth-generation families in the group. “I’ve met some of the best people in the world. Some of my best friends are tractor people because that’s what we do.”
Tractor people also are helpful people.
“If you’ve got a question, you can walk up to them and ask them there. They’ll give you an answer. They’re awesome people,” Weldon said.
This year the 60th annual Dover Steam Show will be held Aug. 16-18, and the show will showcase Case IH equipment.
“We will be featuring anything Case IH related, which technically takes you from the steam era to current farm equipment,” Weldon said. “Case IH is one of those few tractor companies that literally encompasses all of that. Back in the day, the company actually made freezers and refrigerators.”
At the August show, there will be garden tractor pulls on Friday evening, a Farm Toy Show on Saturday, a farm tractor pull on Saturday evening and a Sunday morning service. The grand parade will be at 3 p.m. on Sunday. The steam engines will run all three days.
“There’ll be shingle mills, working sawmill thrashing machine, stationary baler, Baker fans, power eater, garden tractors, hit and miss engines, which back in the day would have been used for running household equipment like your washing machine or to pump water,” Weldon said.
There is much to be learned at a steam show.
“I think a lot of people don’t understand the horsepower behind the steam engine. They look at it as being something old, and I don’t think they truly understand the mechanisms,” Weldon said.
Some consider the steam engine a mechanical marvel because the engines could take water and wood or coal and convert it into horsepower.
“This history is there. You need to learn from it,” Weldon said. “And there’s the work ethic. You look at what it took to run a steam engine and run a thrashing crew and the work that the housewife had to do making the meal for the thrasher men. She might have 50 people sitting around her table that day that she was responsible to feed, and I don’t think people understand that it literally took a community back then to make these things work, and we’re still a community today when we reenact it.”
For the TVPPA Dover Steam Show, gates will open at 8 a.m. Children under 12 are free. Admission for adults is $7 per day, or they may purchase a TVPPA membership for $12, which is good for all three days.
Visit the TVPPA Facebook page.