Days Gone By Threshing Show Portland Tennessee

[Mike McKnight]

Hello! This last weekend we had the annual Days Gone By Threshing Show in Portland, Tennessee here in the good ol' US of A...this is the 6th annual one, and it grows a little bit every year. Here's a few pics to enjoy.

The line-up late Saturday afternoon-unfortunately the fire had gone out in the little Frick by then, so it didn't make the group pic....



Rick Apple's all-Keck-Gonnerman threshing rig at work:



This little gem showed up for sale first thing Friday morning...and didn't stay for sale long!



My good friend Mr. David Hensley keeping the little Frick hot on the sawmill. He is currently restoring a 12 HP Frick that his great-uncle bought new, and his grandfather ran on a threshing ring back in the early 1900's.



This engine, a quite rare 15 HP Nichols & Shepard, was found in the woods a couple of weeks before the show-he made a deal on the engine and it was transported to the grounds so visitors could see a good "before" picture of what a steam engine looks like.



Anyone in the area next year the first weekend of October, we'd love to visit with you, and am sure we could arrange to let you have a ride or steer around an engine! We're friendly in Tennessee!

Mike McKnight

[sparkright]

Thanks for posting Mike

I was looking at some US portables last weekend (at Euro Disney of all places!), quite delightful, are they common over there as we never seem to hear much about them.

[Mike McKnight]

Kev,
They're out there, but except for a few you don't really see a whole lot of them restored or running, esp. at shows-it costs the same amount of money to do the boiler work on a portable as it does a traction engine, and most folks would rather put money into something they could drive. Darn shame you don't see more out and about, as portables were a big part of steam power out in the woods and farms way back when!

Mike M

[K.O'Connell]

The treads on the 15 Nichols & Shepard are worn out because the soil in the US state of Tennessee is very rocky. The recent discovery of this engine is evidence that there are still old traction engines out there, waiting to be found and restored.