•July 5, 2017•

The Illinois Amish Heritage Center will host its inaugural steam threshing show Friday and Saturday, July 21-22 at its new location on Illinois Route 133, three miles east of Arthur and one mile west of Chesterville.

Steam threshing was a common summertime activity on almost every farm in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The threshing machines separated the wheat grain from the chaff and straw and were initially powered by large steam engines. By the 1920s and 30s, however, early gas tractors provided the power source and were connected to the threshing machine by a large belt. Modern combines began to replace threshing machines after World War II.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.