The Great Oregon Steam-Up 2026 - Steam Tractors, Stationary Engines, Vintage Tractor Pulls, Machinery And Much More (With Many Videos)

As we slowly and inexorably transition to a future of clean electricity powering almost everything, the nostalgic pull of a chuffing steam or gas engine seems to become greater than ever, especially when they’re actually pulling hard. Antique and vintage garden tractor pulls are just one of the many compelling attractions at the Great Oregon Steam-Up. Antique stationary engines of all sizes fill the air with their puffing and booming exhausts. Rows and rows of old tractors from little riding mowers to earth-rumbling giants like the Daniel Best steamer that had its maiden outing here. It’s a celebration of internal and external combustion engines in all their glory.

Now that I own a vintage tractor myself, the pull was irresistible and I returned for the first time since 2011. And unlike my modest write-up back then, I’m going to show you as much as possible including videos too, to see and hear them in action.

The Great Oregon Steam-Up has been held at the Powerland Heritage Park in Brooks, OR since 1970, an outgrowth of old-time threshing revivals held at various farms in the area in the 1950s and 1960s. The Powerland Heritage Park is also home to a number of museums, including the excellent Pacific NW Truck Museum and others. It is held the last weekend of July and the first weekend of August.

Where to start? Given its name, let’s celebrate the giant steam engines first. There’s up to 16 of them on site, and this shot from their website shows them all lined up at last year’s event.

There’s always several making the rounds, belching steam and tooting their whistles. And all sorts of other vehicles also on the go.

By far the biggest and most impressive was the Daniel Best steamer that arrived here just a few days before the event and had its maiden outing here, which I witnessed. It was completely restored and rebuilt in Willits, CA (at a rumored cost of $1.5 million) and trucked here, with its stack and cab removed. It is truly a monster and one of the very biggest steam tractors still working anywhere. I’ll show it in a video near the end when it showed off its planet-rotating torque in the tractor pull.

A large stationary steam engine runs the sawmill, which was not currently in operation. Numerous other small stationary steam engines are all running from the same large steam boiler.

Here’s another (unidentified) steam tractor on the go, being piloted by a woman. Steering these heavy and slow machines is a serious undertaking.

There’s also a railroad museum attached and their Santa Maria Valley engine was steamed up but not actually running. Kids and adults were invited into the cab.

The Oregon Electric Railway Museum has a nice loop of track that goes around the site and had this fine double-decker trolley originally from Blackpool, England running. The museum has the largest collection of trolleys and streetcars in the PNW.

In addition to the giant steam tractors there’s an even larger number of early internal combustion tractors and traction engines on display and operating, such as this Rumely Oil Pull tractor. Rumely was a pioneer in farming equipment going back to 1835 (Advance-Rumely) and their Oil Pull tractors—they burned kerosene, hence the name—dominated the early IC tractor field starting in 1910. Rumely was absorbed by Allis-Chalmers in 1931.

Here’s a line-up of various-size Rumely Oil Pull units.

There were of course numerous other early tractors too. They all make wonder chuffing sounds from their giant single cylinder engines.

Shortly before (or after) being absorbed by A-C, Rumely did try to modernize with a newer-style tractor, which had an in-line engine, quite p=likely by one of the proprietary engine manufacturers back then.

That leads us to the hundreds of classic vintage tractors on display, a number of which would show off their abilities in the tractor pull. Here’s some of the Allis-Chalmers units.

Let’s do some more of the smaller brands before moving on to the vast collection of Internationals and John Deeres. Minneapolis-Moline was a highly revered brand that specialized in large and powerful “Wheatland” tractors, used for plowing and hauling combines in the vast dry-farming wheat country of the northern Midwest and Western states. This is a large six cylinder diesel M-M Model GB (1955-1959) was tested at just over 70 belt hp and could pull a five-bottom plow through the heavy stubble of wheat fields and such.

These Model Zs were smaller three-plow tractors.

I was a bit surprised to see so few Case tractors. They were very common in Iowa back in my day, but maybe not so much out here in Oregon? These two are also “standard” type units like the M-Ms, meaning not row-crop tractors. Their job was to…pull, and that they did very effectively, especially this one with huge rear tires, undoubtedly a more recent addition for tractor pulling.

Here’s a 1933 Hart-Parr 28-44. It had a claimed belt hp of 44, but was tested at the Nebraska Tractor trials at 49.04 hp. As was so commonly the case, overhead valve engines were almost universally preferred by those manufacturers that made their own engines because of their greater efficiency. H-P was absorbed into Oliver.

There were so many manufacturers back then, like car companies. This Rock Island G-2 15-25 was rated by the manufacturer with 25 belt hp but tested much higher with 35.69 hp at the belt. The “15” was the claimed drawbar hp, but again, this unit tested higher with 25.50 drawbar hp.

There were numerous other more obscure makes represented.

This splendidly restored Massey-Ferguson 98 was actually built by Oliver and is virtually identical to their 99, both of which used GM’s Detroit-Diesel 3-71 2-stroke engine for motive power. This was in the late ’50s when diesel was quickly becoming more popular and a number of manufacturers bought GM’s diesels. As used here, it was rated at 84.1 PTO HP (PTO HP replaced belt HP at about this time at the Nebraska Tractor Trials. This tractor will be seen later in a video at the tractor pull. There was an Oliver 99 here too, but I failed to get a shot of it.

This very early (Serial #211) Ford 9N from 1939 is quite special, as it has a number of elements that were changed soon to reduce production costs and improve functionality.

A number of the early cast aluminum components were replaced with steel for obvious reasons, and one wonders why they were used in the first place.

It also still has the “Ferguson System” badge that Ford later ditched and led to a long-drawn out lawsuit by Harry Ferguson against Ford (Ferguson won).

It was a brilliantly simple and effective tractor, although there was resistance to adopting it as existing implements did not fit.

That is, to the Ferguson’s brilliant three-point hitch, the most revolutionary tractor development since the first Farmall row-crop tractor in 1923. This type of weight-equalizing hitch allowed a smaller and lighter tractor to effectively pull above its weight. Ed Stembridge wrote up the Ford N-Ferguson saga in great detail here.

Ford Ns have been a favorite for small farmers for many decades, but it appears that interest is starting to wane, and there were a few for sale, needing extensive restoration.

There was also this 8N Funk conversion from 1952 which swapped in Ford’s brand new ohv car and truck 223 six, greatly improving its power.

This Ferguson 35 was a direct development of the original Ferguson that was shared with Ford. These were built by Massey-Harris, which had bought Ferguson, and used a Continental ohv four. The UK-built version used the Standard four as also used in Standard cars and the Triumph TR sports cars.

There was also this “Golden Jubilee” (1953) Ford that now sported an all-new modern ohv four in place of the old flathead four that was essentially one half of the flathead V8.

This Ford 961 Powermaster was an unexpected treat as I had not seen one since…? In the late 1950s Ford needed to move past the small utility-size tractor market and into the larger row-crop market that Farmall and John Deere dominated. The 961 used an uprated version of the ohv four that first appeared on the previous tractor shown, and was rated at 62.6 gross hp and could pull a three-bottom plow (under ideal conditions).

A big Ford 9600 (1972-1976) shows how rapidly tractors grew in the 1970s. It was tested at 135 PTO HP, and of course much bigger tractors were already on the way.

I always liked the styling of Olivers since they adopted a streamlined look in the late ’30s. And all of the larger Olivers used six cylinder Waukesha engines that were so smooth and had a lovely exhaust purr only an inline six has. They were the opposite of John Deere’s two-cylinder “poppers”. The owner of this Model 70 enhanced that exhaust purr with a custom twin exhaust system. It was used to pull visitors around the site and it did sound delightful.

This top of the line Super 88 Diesel (1954-1958) had a Waukesha-Oliver diesel with 55.77 tested belt hp.

Time to move on to the stationary engines, and what better way to get there than on this presumably home-built tractor? Actually, it may well be an early garden tractor, and yes, tiller steering was not uncommon on these as it was simply cheaper.

The outdoor small engine exhibitors always bring a huge assortment of engines, most of them of the “hit-and-miss” variety. These have no throttle; the intake valve on hit-and-miss engines has no lifting mechanism; instead, a light spring keeps the intake valve closed unless a vacuum in the cylinder draws it open. This vacuum only occurs if the exhaust valve is closed during the piston’s down-stroke. When the hit-and-miss engine is operating above its set speed, the governor holds the exhaust valve open, preventing a vacuum in the cylinder and causing the intake valve to remain closed, thus interrupting the usual 4-stroke cycle. When the engine is operating at or below its set speed, the governor lets the exhaust valve close. On the next down-stroke, a vacuum in the cylinder opens the intake valve and lets the fuel-air mixture enter. This mechanism prevents fuel consumption during the intake stroke of “miss” cycles.

The result is the occasional “pop” from the exhaust, and then the heavy flywheel keeps it spinning until…the next pop.

In addition to the hit-and-miss, there were the little 2-stroke engines used to power domestic appliances like this Maytag washer. The engine was also sold by Maytag and had a foot lever starter for the missus of the household. I’m sure it beat washing and wringing by hand.

The big action takes place inside the two large engine buildings where numerous ones are on display and several are running at any time. This is a 1928 Atlas Imperial 70 HP Diesel as once used in a fishing boat. It’s a symphony of moving parts.

This is a 1910 80 HP Fairbanks-Morse kerosene-burning engine. Three cylinders, and it runs at 300 rpm. It spent its working life running an alfalfa seed cleaning mill near Echo, OR in Eastern Oregon.

And an even larger natural gas powered 200 hp two-cylinder engine built in 1928 by Western Machine Co. in LA and used for pumping irrigation water in Southern California. Notice the very different type of “camshaft” used to actuate the exhaust valves (the intake valves were “automatic”, opening against their springs from the induced vacuum, common on early engines).

I watched as the operator of this giant industrial engine turned the huge flywheel with a long bar in preparation to starting it.

And then watched as several attempts to start it (with compressed air) failed. Too bad…I wonder who will know how to run this beast after the current caretaker is no longer able to?

Let’s tear ourselves away from the big engines and check out the little guys, as in the form of vintage garden and lawn tractors.

For some reason I was particularly attracted to this Case. By the mid-1960s, these garden tractors had really come into their own, and with 10-12 hp, were able to do some serious work.

These cute Scottys looked a bit more capable than they really were, given the 3 hp B&S engines they had. Just did what they did at a slower speed…

Even earlier units were more utilitarian, before they sprouted hoods.

These Panzers from Pennsylvania caught my eye, as they have a unique “transmission”.

The three forward gears are selected by slipping the belt unto the three different size pulleys. That is facilitated by the drive shaft, which is moved in and out by a handle and also acts as a clutch. And there’s even a reverse gear, when the handle is pulled all the way in, so that the smooth front of the driven pulley assembly contacts a rubber drive wheel on the front of the engine. Clever.

These three green machines are from Germany; the front two are Holders with AWD and a central hinge-pivot for steering. The far unit is a Stihl. All are powered by a Sachs single cylinder two-stroke air-cooled diesel engine.

The two front machines are York Turn-O-Bouts, which had a clever zero-radius turning mechanism.

Gibson established itself as a more enduring brand.

How about a Snapping Turtle mower from 1951? Looks like the wheels are faired in like the Nashes of the time. This evolved into the familiar line of Snapper mowers.

And here’s a real odd-ball, the 1963 Lawn Boy Loafer. It has a riding sulky attached, with its own engine to propel both units.

Just what every Lawn Boy fan ever wanted: the sound (and smell) of two two-strokes hard at work.

Another couple of long-forgotten brands, the Eshelman Deluxe and the Holmes.

Of course John Deere was also represented. These early ones are very collectable as are many old garden and riding tractors and such. Well, just about anything old…

Like this fine collection of old single cylinder engines, mostly Briggs and Strattons.

I do like the sound of a little B&S single cylinder purring away.

Foot lever starters for several of these.

Modifying garden tractors for pulling is also quite a hobby. Here’s several on display.

This one sported two vertical-shaft V2 engines back-to-back. But that’s not all…

There’s a little turbocharger feeding them both! There’s a video of it pulling further down.

And this custom built one sports no less than a Honda Goldwing 1200 cc flat four. I heard this running and yes, it sounds wicked.

Let’s head to the vast assemblies of John Deere and International/Farmall tractors. They were divided by a road, and that’s probably a bit more than symbolic as the adherents to these two brands are very loyal to them. Not me; I love them both, as well as all the others.

My very first tractor drive was on a JD Model B, so yes, Johnny Poppers do have a special place in my heart.

And this was my favorite one of them all here, a Model D with two big exhaust stacks, one for each 250 cubic inch cylinder (yes). The Model D had a very long lifespan, from 1923 to 1953, thanks to its ruggedness and unstoppable pulling power from its 470, and later 501 cubic inch twin that churned out some 42 hp at the belt and 38.02 at the drawbar at 900 rpm. There’s a video further down of another Model D strutting its stuff at the tractor pull.

At the other end of the JD scale was this little Model LA (1941-1946) with all of some 13 hp from its little vertical twin engine. It was clearly a competitor of the Farmall Cub, but did not nearly equal it in popularity.

The Model A (front) and B (next two) were the mainstays of the JD row crop line for decades. In 1938 they were restyled by Dreyfuss Associates, one of several industrial stylists. International/Farmalls were also restyled in 1939 by Raymond Loewy and Associates.

John Deeres were preceded by the Waterloo Boy line of tractors. Some “Waterloo boys” here are discussing the fine points of the brand.

One of the rarer and more unusual John Deeres is this model 435 diesel that used a GM DD 2-53 engine, rated at 32.9 HP. This was in the late ’50s, not long before J-D came out with its brilliant line of new inline engine tractors.

Watch out for your feet!

We’ll say goodbye to the John Deere tribe with this short video of a fine Model A sporting two chrome exhausts and…a pretty young woman sitting next to the driver. Just goes to show the pull a vintage tractor has, even with young women.

Time to cross the street and had to the red tribe. This is just one aisle…

Let’s start with the oldest one here, this Farmall F-20. It’s an improved version of the original Farmall from 1923, which came to be known as the Standard. The original Farmall was the biggest revolution in tractor design (until the Ferguson-Ford) because now the tractor could have numerous implements attached directly to the tractor and make row crop farming much more productive. Up until the Farmall, tractors only just pulled, like horses; now it was truly a multi-purpose machine.

The Mennonite family I stayed with had an old F-20 with a crude front end loader. Mr. Yoder used it only for mucking out the barns; it had a straight exhaust and made an unforgettable racket. One day after the mid-day meal (“dinner”) and while everyone was resting I was out fooling around and gave the starting handle of the F20 a pull. To my huge surprise, it started up! The problem was is that I didn’t know how to stop it, having never driven it. Mr. Yoder came out too a bit annoyed to have been woken up from his nap (as a dairy farmer, he got up at 5 every morning) and killed it. Not sure why the switch had been left on, but these had magneto ignition so there wasn’t a battery to drain.

Farmall was always and only used on International’s row crop tractors. The “standard” tractors were branded just McCormick-Deering (later International), like this big husky W6 (1940-1953). These were used mostly in the West, pulling plows and combines. The Farmall H next to it was likely the most popular of the line, a medium-power unit so suitable for the typical smaller-medium sized farms of its time (1939-1953). Its 251 cubic inch four was tested at 26 belt hp.

Here’s the smaller members of the Farmall family, starting with a Super A, two Cub Cadets, two Cubs, another A and a Super C.

Yes, there were a lot of Cubs, including this perfectly restored ’48, just like mine. It tells me that the decals on mine are not original to these very early Cubs.

The International 600 was a successor to the W6, another husky “standard” tractor to compete against the big John Deeres and others. The third one down is a Low Boy Cub sporting some curious wire wheels that must have originated likely on an International truck as the hub cap has “International” on it.

The 404 is a smaller row crop tractor that effectively replaced the older Model C and 100/140 tractors. Next to it as an orchard tractor and a few more standards.

The Cub went through several restyles to match the larger tractors at any time.

Here’s an A or B that has been widened at the rear and now has his-and-hers seats. Or for pilot and co-pilot? Teacher and student?

Here’s the big boy of the red tribe, a 660 diesel (1959-1963). Its engine was rated at 95 gross hp. This one is sporting oversize wheels and tires and they will be put to good use in the tractor pull, the video of which is further down.

The Yoder’s neighbors had a Farmall 400, which i drove once or twice. It was the replacement for the M, which is what the Yoders had.

Powerland grows a small field of wheat or oats to be harvested and threshed with antique equipment. Here’s the work in action, with a JD Model A powering the thresher with a long belt and a Farmall Super A powering the belt for the bailer, which was far from automatic. Last time I was here they were using steam engines but maybe there’s a concern about fires?

The “Parade of Power” runs through the event and takes well over an hour as all sorts of tractors and vehicles slowly wend their way. Up ahead are several museums.

The Pacific Northwest Truck Museum encompasses three large buildings and is truly superb. I last went through it a couple of summers ago when I was at Powerland for the big truck show and took lots of pictures, but never wrote it up. It takes a lot of time, my friends, as this post is doing, on a beautiful summer day when I should be outside. But I do like sharing these things with you. I will try to write up the truck museum this winter…

There’s also the Fire Service Museum, and there’s a decent car museum past that.

And there’s the Caterpillar museum, celebrating 100 years of the famous brand. Lots of exhibits going back to the original Holt tractors that begat the first Caterpillars. Here’s that giant “The Best” steamer behind another giant:

A Twin D8! Four were built back in 1954, as an experimental stopgap until the much bigger D9 came along. All were scrapped, but someone took that as a challenge to recreate one.

Plenty of room to bring your friends along. This monster also rolled through the event in the Parade of Power but there were two safety persons walking in front on both sides of that wide blade to make sure no spectators were bulldozed away.

Lots of Caterpillars from the early years.

Here they are all lined up before they joined the big parade.

A 1947 Tucker Sno-Cat was in there amongst them all, and it too joined the parade, with wheels having replaced the front skis.

I love that old Caterpillar logo. The numbers referred to their drawbar pulling power (in horsepower).

Out back were a couple of trolley buses, a Twin Coach and a CCF in need of restoration.

A few light trucks even made it in, including this fine old Dodge Powerwagon 4×4 and a similar vintage GMC 4×4.

And four “Binders”.

The water truck that kept the dust down is an early Peterbilt from the truck museum. It was actually a rather cool and very pleasant day in the mid-upper ’70s at the most.

At around four, the tractor pulls started, with the kids and garden tractors. I was ready to sit down after spending the day since 9:30 on my feet, so I didn’t take any videos. But it was sweet to see (and hear) these kids and their stock or modified baby tractors pulling, their one cylinder engines working hard.

Next up was the modified garden tractor class and I took one video of that turbocharged twin engine rig.

Then it was time for the vintage tractor pulls, starting with the star of the show, the Daniel Best steamer. Of course it made easy work of pulling the steel sled loaded with the big and heavy Minneapolis-Moline tractor as well as 20 people, who get on the sledge as it moves down the line. This is the old fashioned way to increase weight on a tractor pull sled instead of one that automatically increases the weight on the sled.

Next up was a John Deere Model D, which easily chugged its load of a Farmall Cub and all 20 people. Due to the fact that real people volunteer to get on the sled, these pulls are done at low throttle settings, unlike some of the hard charges done at typical pulls. It requires lots of low end torque, which the John Deeres excel at.

This Farmall H kept it down until the very end, when it started to run out of pull and the flagman gave him the go-ahead to open the throttle. But by that time traction was gone.

The John Deere 830 (1958-1961) was the last and biggest and most powerful of the classic tow cylinder johnny poppers. Its 470 CID twin belted out 75.6 HP at the belt in the Nebraska tests and here it pulls a substantial load consisting of a Case tractor, a Cub and the 20 volunteers. It just doesn’t want to stop.

The DD powered M-F 98 provides a distinct contrast to the 830. The operator comes out a bit fast and the flagman has to use his hands to ease up on the throttle a couple of times. It seemed to bog down early as a result and did not finish the run. The operator might have not made all the right moves.

There were 24 tractors lined up to pull, so we’ll stop here with this fine pull by a J-D Model A pulling a rather heavy load (a Case tractor) given its modest 30 or so horsepower. It did not complete the pull but it gave it its all.

And I’ve given my all; it’s more than time to wrap this up. This coming weekend (Aug. 1-2) is the second one of The Great Oregon Steam-Up, so there’s still time to catch it.