By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

GIBSONBURG, Ohio — Over Labor Day weekend at the White Star Park in Gibsonburg, SCRAP (Sandusky County Restorers of Antique Power) hosted its 22nd annual tractor show. This year, Graham Bradley tractors were the featured brand.

With these and Bradley tractor owners coming in from all over, there were more than 20 Graham Bradleys and a handful of the rare Bradleys on display. Around 490 tractors of all makes and models were registered for this year’s show.

That Saturday night, local Graham Bradley collectors Nancy and Ray Reynolds hosted a banquet at their farm. The entire Reynolds family turned out the welcome mat to collectors who wended their way into this northern Ohio town.

The food and locale were great and the meeting brief, with a reminder to Graham Bradley collectors that next year’s show will be at the American Heritage Museum in Greenville, Ill. More information may be found at http://americanfarmheritage museum.org

Along with the featured and other usual tractor brands, there was an unusual Schramm tractor, a Studebaker Weasel World War II vehicle and a lovely Cockshutt tractor with bombardier tracks. There were also a few unusual items, such as the tall bicycle that ran on a lawn mower engine, a self-propelled John Deere manure spreader and a homemade tractor with a construction blade/shovel on back.

Several Cushman scooters such as a Cushman Golfster and others were on display, too. There were a few cool cars – one claiming to be the smallest car – and a one-of-a-kind Zar Car prototype built in 1959 and owned by Brent & Nan Myers.

On-site were two log cabins from the 1800s, for visitors. One was the Schlea-Schwartzlande Log House and the second was the Reineck Log House. Between the two homes was a garden and inside, they were furnished with period pieces. Inside one cabin a young woman was even demonstrating how to make a rag rug.

Show attendees enjoyed demonstrations of ketchup-making, homemade ice cream, basket weaving, quilting, shingle-making, rock crushing, blacksmithing and more. There were many great displays of engines, lanterns and the like. One man was creating walking sticks using a wooden lathe, and a hay display showed a JD junior making hay bales. There was also a corn threshing display.

Each day was a parade and on Friday, visitors enjoyed the unseasonably cool weather; one vendor said he sold out of jackets and just wished he had thought to bring more. While the ice cream and snow cones that were selling so well not long ago may not have been flying into visitors’ hands, coffee and the chicken and noodles the local church was selling were hot items indeed.

Sunday, while still cool, was warmer and visitors shed the heavy jackets from earlier in the weekend. The show continued into Sept. 6, wrapping up the 2010 Labor Day holiday.