Family Keeps 1951 Tractor Running at Wisconsin Engine Show

When Judy Clark-Mente's grandchildren climb onto her parents' 1951 Allis-Chalmers tractor at the annual Badger Steam and Gas Engine Show, they're not just driving a piece of metal. They're steering family history.

The Baraboo, Wisconsin woman has volunteered at the show since 1997, coordinating advertising and organizing the daily tractor parade. But for Clark-Mente, the event is about preserving something bigger than old machinery.

"My husband and my brother-in-law both were members long before my son and I," she says. "And since then, most of my grandkids are members also."

The show welcomes hundreds of vintage tractors and engines each year, but unlike typical museums, visitors can watch the equipment actually work. Clark-Mente helps prepare demonstrations throughout each day, including grain binders making bundles for old-fashioned threshing machines.

This hands-on approach transforms agricultural history from textbook pages into rumbling, working reality. Visitors see the dramatic leap from two-cylinder tractors to modern turbocharged four-wheel drives playing out right in front of them.

This year's show features John Deere as the highlighted manufacturer. Clark-Mente expects hundreds of green tractors, with some collectors so dedicated they drive their vintage equipment to the showgrounds instead of using trailers.

Her family lives just five miles away, so they regularly make the trip on their own tractors. They even bring a hay wagon home after the show to haul the straw used in threshing demonstrations.

Sunny's Take

What makes this story special isn't the tractors. It's watching Clark-Mente's grandchildren experience the same machinery their great-grandparents relied on to build their lives. The show proves that history doesn't have to gather dust in a museum when volunteers are willing to keep it running.

These families aren't just preserving machines, they're keeping skills, stories, and connections alive for generations who will never experience farming the old way. That's the kind of heritage worth celebrating.

The next generation already has their hands on the wheel.