PONTIAC, Ill. — Forty-five minutes before the noon parade stepped off, the morning’s ominous clouds went south, the sun beamed down – and the 66th anniversary of the second oldest thresherman’s reunion in the United States was under way.

There was no lack of attractions to keep visitors – and exhibitors – busy at the four-day Central States Thresherman’s Reunion on Labor Day weekend. A general store was a daily enticement, along with a 1920s Conoco gas station, one-room country schoolhouse from 1900, screaming sawmill and a hot blacksmith shop.

There also was corn shelling, home cooking, soap-making, a chainsaw wood carver, mini train rides, a craft show and a flea market, with vendors at both happily racking up sales.

Awesome vintage autos and trucks were on display along with venerable agriculture tractors, elephant-size steam engines and “one lunger” stationary gasoline engines. Signs urged the crowds to buy raffle tickets in hopes of winning a tractor.

A large outdoor placard listed next year’s featured engines at the 67th reunion as the Minneapolis-Moline lineup resplendent in their Prairie Gold painted exteriors. The 2014 reunion showcased Allis Chalmers and Graham Bradley engines and equipment.

The reunion also reconnected Lowell R. Gustafson of Hanley Falls, Minn., with the 101-year old tractor he sold two years ago. The tractor was a 25-50 Avery 1913 model with a sliding frame transmission, which slides the engine into the gears when the operator shifts them.

“I cried like a baby,” the 65-year-plus tractor collector and retired farmer noted upon seeing what had been his Avery. “I couldn’t help it. Carl (current owner) told me that was okay. He said it takes a big man with a big heart to cry. I don’t do that very often, but I got attached to all this stuff. It’s part of my family.”

Gustafson has many tractors. He also originated a threshing machine reunion at Hanley Falls. Later on, he and his wife, Mavis, moved into a home within the village. He said the items in his collection had gotten too big for him and he could no longer handle them.

 “I sold the Avery to Carl and his brother two to three years ago, but I just had to come back (to Pontiac) and see it once because it meant a lot to me,” Gustafson said. “I got to drive it yesterday and line it up to the threshing machine. I drove it again this morning.

“It was just like old times. We came (to Pontiac) Wednesday. We looked at the tractor and I had a little meltdown.”

Gustafson bought the Avery about four miles from his residence and drove it home. “It’s the first big tractor I ever had,” he said. “I bought it because I thought it was fun. I didn’t know (ag equipment) would be worth anything down the road and I didn’t buy it for that.

“Now it’s worth something. We’ve had fun. We had a good life doing it. That tractor wants to work.”

Brothers Neal and Tyler Stroo of Momence, Ill., showed a 1910 Aultman-Taylor 30-60 gasoline (converted kerosene) tractor that could be the oldest in the world still operating today. Neal was unsure how many of this particular model were made, but thought theirs was the sixth off the assembly line. The tractor’s serial number was 106.

The brothers’ great-uncle bought the Aultman-Taylor in Monmouth circa 1961. The tractor sat in a shed on their property for 20 years before they found friends who knew how to run it and taught the two tricks of the trade. They didn’t enter the tractor in the Thresherman’s Reunion parade through Pontiac, however, as the 10-ton iron beast would have to be loaded on a semi-trailer to even make the trek downtown.

“When my great-uncle found the Aultman, it was actually buried in the ground,” Neal said. “The day before he bought the tractor, the then-owners had scrapped a multi-bottom plow. If it had been a day later, they would have scrapped the tractor, too, so my great-uncle had gotten very lucky.”

The father-son team of Jim and Chris Erickson of Odell, Ill., own a 1917 Wood Brothers steam engine they purchased at a steam engine show in Minnesota 10 years ago. The engine was used at the Pontiac reunion to power the sawmill that demonstrated the technique of turning large tree trunks into boards for building purposes.

“It was exciting and fun to buy a steam engine,” said Chris, who is the fourth generation of his family interested in them. “I’ve driven steam engines my whole life. And oh, yes, yes, we’ll definitely keep this one in the family.”

Lastly, Randy Vollmer of St. Louis, a native of nearby Flanagan, Ill., drove a half-scale model of a 40-hp Avery steam engine around the reunion grounds. The model was built in Indiana in the early 1950s.

“My cousin owns it and I run it for her,” Vollmer said. “Scale model threshing machines and such are just for demonstrations.”

The four-day agriculture event was organized in 1948 as Zehr’s Central States Steam Engine Thresher Historical Reunion Inc. The event then became the Central States Thresherman’s Reunion in 1954. Central States purchased its current 50-acre site on Illinois 23 in 1982, and moved the annual reunion there four years later.