By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent PEEBLES, Ohio — On Aug. 17-18, the Village of Peebles will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the 1957 World’s Conservation Exposition and Plowing Contests.
The 1957 event showcased the best soil conservation practices of the time and hosted the state, national and international plowing contests – it was the first time the international matches were held in the United States. Twenty countries were represented.
With about 250,000 in attendance, it was the largest event in Adams County, Ohio history.
Then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a telegram stating, in part: “It is encouraging to see this degree of attention focused internationally on the wise husbandry of the soil. The conservation methods presented by you this year are potent instruments in building a more secure, healthy and peaceful world community.”
Events at the anniversary celebration will include plowing demonstrations, a 1950s style show, a showing of tractors and plows that have competed in state, national and international plowing contests, pre-1957 farm equipment and square-dancing tractors. Participants in the 1957 contests and “Queen of the Furrow” Ann Lane Schaffner will be there.
The 1957 event was the brainchild of by Earl K. DeVore, who, as chairman of the Adams County Soil and Water Conservation District as well as a participant in plowing matches, had interest in both activities, according to John Wickerham.
At age 19, for the going rate of $1 an hour, Wickerham helped prepare the original event. Now he is planning for its anniversary celebration.
Sixteen landowners combined their farms to come up with the 2,500 acres needed to host the event in 1957, he said. Peebles was a small, rural town with no lodging facilities, so local residents opened their homes to provide beds and meals for the contestants and their families, who traveled from all over the world.
“All those farmers had to get the fields to be in the right crop or pasture at the time of the plowing contest. They had to alter their crop rotation,” Wickerham said. “That was all started three years in advance.”
International Harvester had a large display, he said. At that time it was introducing its fast-hitch method of hooking implements to tractors. To promote it, the company used C Farmall tractors, and drivers would square dance with those tractors, eight in a ring.
“Using their fast hitch method, they would hook up to an implement and go out and do a do-si-do or whatever,” Wickerham said. “Then they’d go back and unhook that and hook something else, which was quite an attraction because prior to that, getting an implement hooked up was not that easy.”
The celebration will be held at the Peebles High School grounds, south of Peebles on State Route 41. On Aug. 17 there will be a banquet at 6:30 p.m.; tickets are $20. The Aug. 18 events are free. Opening ceremonies begin at 10 a.m. For information, call 937-587-2043.
This farm news was published in the Aug. 8, 2007 issue of Farm World, serving Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan and Tennessee. |
