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International Old Equipment Expo hosted in Ohio this fall

By VICKI JOHNSON
Ohio Correspondent

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Farmers who like antique equipment might enjoy a visit to this year’s International Convention and Old Equipment Exposition Sept 18-20 near Bowling Green, Ohio.
The 24th annual event, sponsored by the Historical Construction Equipment Association (HCEA), features antique construction equipment.

The show is expected to attract demonstrators and visitors from throughout the United States, as well as from other countries.
“It will be an earth-moving experience,” said Dave Shively, a HCEA volunteer and one of the convention’s coordinators. “They come to watch old stuff work. As crude as it may seem, it worked.
“Guys will bring equipment in just for this three-day show,” he said. “We’ll have people from worldwide.”

In past years, participants have traveled from Australia, Great Britain, Sweden, Germany and Canada. There are also members in Belgium, England, Finland, France, Australia, Ireland, Italy, Mexico and New Zealand.

HCEA has at least 4,500 members.

“I’m guessing we’re above that now,” Shively said. “We have people from all across the world, but the Midwest is the bulk of the group. They plan a trip for our show.”

The non-profit organization was founded in 1986 and is the only organization in the world dedicated to preserving and documenting for public education the history of the construction, dredging and surface mining equipment industries.

The museum houses archives that include sales literature, photographs, repair manuals, business records and other information on more than 2,600 equipment manufacturers from the 1870s to today.

The show, which takes place this year at HCEA’s headquarters, features demonstrations of horse-drawn, gas and diesel-powered antique construction machinery, hit-and-miss engines, antique trucks and a variety of other old machinery. Its home office houses a museum, archives and a restoration shop.

Equipment and vehicles built or powered by International Harvester are being featured, along with machines in the museum’s collection.

“We’re out there moving dirt around,” Shively said.

This year, participants can help build a one-acre pond on a portion of the organization’s recently-purchased land. HCEA now owns about 40 acres at the site. Members are invited to join a scraper from the museum’s collection in digging the pond.

“We always thought it would be nice to have a pond down there for future camping,” he said.

In turn, soil from the pond is to be used to create a pile of dirt for demonstrations by shovels and excavators.

“(Visitors will) see demonstrations of all the equipment that’s here,” Shively said. “They can get close up to how the equipment is running and how it was done in the past. People enjoy just watching the machines operating, watching how it moves.

“It’s a form of history,” he added. “To show how things were done and see the development of machines from then to now. They can see how roads and dams got built. The roads you’re driving on nowadays.”

Machines range from horse- or mule-drawn to self-propelled.

“It shows the era and succession,” Shively said. “We started out with a horse-and-board scraper and went to a shell scraper and now we’re at the pull scraper.”

When engines came along, they started as steam-powered and moved into gasoline. And some types of equipment moved through the years from using cables and levers to hydraulics.

“It’s an interesting thing to watch and see how these machines moved,” Shively said. “You wonder how they did all that, but they did. We want everybody to come and experience a unique event.”
Shively said one year a man displayed a crawler he has just finished restoring, but didn’t take it off the trailer.

“On the last day he had to get some dirt on it,” he said. “He said, ‘This machine’s made to work and I’m going to go out and play in the dirt.’“

The convention isn’t always in the same location.

“It moves around the country,” Shively said. “Next year, it’ll be out in the northeastern area (Rhode Island). Last year, it was in Pennsylvania. It’s been in New York, Iowa, Nebraska.”

The convention has been at the Bowling Green site twice before – in 1995 and in 2006.

“This is the fastest it’s come back,” Shively said.

Also at this year’s show, vendors set up displays in the museum and outside with literature, models, toys and scale models of machines. And a parade is planned.

Members of the Black Swamp Chapter of the American Truck Historical Society plan to show vintage trucks on Saturday, and they’ll be joined by members from other chapters in the area.
The convention also includes historical displays, dozens of memorabilia vendors, and a membership banquet on Saturday night. Dinner tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for children. Speaker is Roy LeTourneau, son of earth-moving and manufacturing pioneer R.G. LeTourneau.

There is a sand pit where children can play.

“Kids can crank different conveyors and separate the sand from the stone and they’ll just play with that all day,” Shively said.
In addition to hosting the annual convention, HCEA works year round restoring equipment.

Shively said the organizations receives donations from many places, mainly out-of-date quarry equipment.

“They shove it in the back corner of their lot and they don’t know what to do with it,” he said.

When it’s offered to HCEA, an acquisition committee reviews donation and decides whether or not the item would benefit the organization. If it already owns similar equipment, they might repair it and auction it as a fundraiser.

Shively said HCEA would like to find an old bulldozer to be donated.
“We like it if somebody donates a restored piece,” he said. “That makes us real happy.”

But for most donations, volunteers put in a lot of restoration work.
A diverse group of 10-20 volunteers meet on Wednesday evenings and one Sunday a month at the Bowling Green site.

They travel mainly from a 30-mile radius, but once in a while a member will travel from Canada on a Sunday.

Anybody who is interested in volunteering can visit on a Wednesday evening to check it out.

Show hours are 9 a.m. to dark Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday. Admission per person 12 or older is $5 daily or $10 for a weekend pass. Primitive on-site camping is available for $15 per space per night. No ATVs are allowed.

The museum’s address is 16623 Liberty Hi Road, Bowling Green. For more information on the organization, the show or other forms of lodging during the show, visit www.hcea.net, call 419-352-5616 or e-mail tberry@hcea.net

9/2/2009