THE ENGINES OF MT. PLEASANT
It had been a few years since I’d taken in the Old Threshers Reunion at Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, so I was glad for the opportunity to attend 2018’s 69th annual reunion, held as always over the Labor Day weekend. In addition to the expected horde of steam traction engines (at least 40 by my count and certainly more) and tractors – I didn’t bother to count; there were hundreds – was the expected gathering of vintage engines. Spread out over a large area on the north end of the grounds, the engines ranged from the rare to the expected, such as Jim Patton’s 1910 20 hp 4-cylinder Lamb, which originally powered a Mississippi River ferry boat, and the Tuller family’s 1914 1-1/2 hp Waterloo Boy.
This year’s feature engine was the United, and one ofKenny, who says that he and his brother, Keith, have been coming to Mt. Pleasant for the past 40 years, acquired the engine 47 years ago, rescuing it from a corncrib about a quarter-mile from his rural home in Morning Sun, Iowa. It originally came off a farm about 3 miles from the McElhinney’s, where it ran a buzz saw, a grinder, and a line shaft to a pump house. Kenny is only the third owner of the United, which has lived its entire life within 25 miles of Mt. Pleasant.
