Camp Creek Threshers: Steam tractors draw three generations of farming history
WAVERLY, Neb. (KOLN) – A 1923 Case 80 steam engine and a 1916 Aultman Taylor 20-horse steam tractor were recently on display at Camp Creek Threshers by a Uehling area family.Doug Egbers said the tractors are becoming increasingly rare as aging boilers fall into disrepair.
“They’re getting rarer more at a time because boilers get bad, and it’s expensive to repair a boiler on these,” Egbers said. “We’re looking at repairing one of another one I have, putting a new boiler on them.”
Getting a steam tractor operational is a time-intensive process, Egbers said. Operators must fill the boiler with water, heat it past the boiling point to generate steam, and maintain pressure throughout operation.
“It takes probably from the start roughly two hours to fire them up to get them up to full steam to operate them,” he said.
The 1923 Case was built primarily for plowing and running large threshing machines, Egbers said. Smaller steam engines of the era were used for corn shelling, threshing, and other lighter tasks.
Egbers said steam engines represented a significant shift in agricultural capacity compared to horse-drawn equipment.
“This steam engine here, it has 80 horsepower on the belt, but it’s only like 28 horsepower on the draw bar,” he said. “But it will pull an eight bottom plow.”
By comparison, he said four horses could pull only a two- or three-bottom plow depending on soil conditions. Steam engines were used first to break new ground, Egbers said, with sod-busting among their earliest agricultural applications.
The Egbers family last attended a show at Camp Creek 14 years ago. Egbers said his parents, Alfred and Beverly Egbers, regularly brought the family to the event.
Three generations of the Egbers family participated in this year’s show, including Egbers, his brother, his sons, grandsons, granddaughters, and his brother’s sons and grandsons.
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