Repower tractors featured at Half Century show

RANTOUL, Ill. — The Rantoul Repower Roundup is the theme for the Half Century of Progress show.

“A lot of farm shops took the original engine out of the tractor and put a different engine in,” said Russell Buhr, who is serving as co-chairman of the Half Century of Progress show together with John Fredrickson.

“I don’t know of hardly any brand that didn’t do it because when the motor went bad in your tractor you would put different motor in it,” Buhr said. “You might put a flathead V8 from a car that you found in a junkyard for $25 to $50 and then you could still farm with the tractor while not breaking the bank to do it.”

Buhr is quite familiar with the Rantoul area where the show will be held Aug. 26-29 at the Rantoul Aviation Center.

“I grew up in Flatville and that’s where I went to grade school and church and then I went to Rantoul High School,” he said.

Joining the I&I Antique Tractor and Gas Engine Club was easy for Buhr because he likes tractors.

“I worked at a Ford Tractor dealership in Thomasboro and we worked on several brands there,” he said.

In 1983, Buhr started farming with his brother, growing corn and soybeans.

“He is farming with his son and I am farming with my son, Andy,” he said. “My grandson, Max, is in fifth grade, so we’re getting him involved.”

Buhr has several brands of tractors in his collection, including Minneapolis-Moline, Oliver, Cockshutt, Ford, John Deere and International.

“Minneapolis and International are my two favorites, but I like them all because I like tractors,” he said.

Sometimes the tractor collector finds unique items on the internet to add to his collection, like his Buhrer tractor.

“It was in New York and it was made in Switzerland, so I thought I had to have it because there is probably not another one in the U.S.,” he said.

The Buhrer tractor is green and red.

“It has a Fordson diesel engine in it,” Buhr said. “The tractor was made by the Fritz Buhrer Tractor Company and he bought different motors and put them in his tractors.”

The farmer plans to take his David Brown tractor to the Half Century of Progress show.

“I bought that tractor out of Ohio and it is a 990 model,” Buhr said. “These tractors were made in England and then Case bought the company, so the tractors were painted the orange and white Case colors.”

The show co-chairman expects collectors from about 30 states to attend or bring equipment to display and operate during the Half Century of Progress show and he is looking forward to reconnecting with people he hasn’t seen for two years.

“That’s what this is all about, having a good time,” Buhr stressed. “You get to talking to people and pretty soon you develop a friendship.”

Buhr is concerned that the rural areas are losing some of the connections with neighbors.

“Where I grew up it was amazing how neighbors worked together to help each other farm,” he said.

A threshing ring is one example when one person owned the threshing machine and the tractor to run it.

“Everyone had oats or wheat and they would make their bundles and then the threshing machine would come around and thresh the oats out of the straw,” Buhr explained. “Seven or eight families went together for the threshing ring.”

At 12 o’clock, the group would eat dinner.

“The women got together to help make dinner and there was a little competition of who made the best meal or the best pie,” Buhr said. “Then the men would go back out in the afternoon and do more threshing.”

Threshing rings were common from about 1910 until the early ‘50s when farmers began to purchase combines.

“It was neighborly stuff with everybody working together instead of someone trying to rent the farm away from someone else,” Buhr said.