ALLENDALE, Mich — On Friday evening, hundreds of people gathered in a field near the corner of 56th Avenue and Alger Street for what's become an annual tradition. The Riverbend Steam & Gas Association's annual antique tractor show is going on there through Saturday.
"You look around the grounds, and we've got tractors. We've got steam engines. We've got hit and miss engines, all that kind of stuff. We're showing people how farming used to be done. Many people think their food comes from the grocery store, but this is where it starts. This is where we get it. We harvest it. We run it through the machines to get it ready to go," said club president Ryan Fennema.
Friday night Fennema was at the helm of a historic steam engine that spent decades in the Henry Ford Museum before his family acquired it and got it running again. On the other end, Rick Gilder was operating a husker shredder, which is what farmers 100 years ago used to harvest corn.
"We enjoy doing this. We enjoy showing people how things used to be done in an appreciation of how far we've come the last 100 years," Gilder said.
Both men said their families have been farming for many generations, and that's why they're so passionate about keeping these old traditions alive. Fennema got choked up talking about it.
"My grandfather and I did a lot of this together, and I learned it from him. When I was five years old, I was on these tractors with him, running this equipment, and that's where I learned - my grandfather, my father going through those years. So even today, it was really special. We had two tractors running. The machines were humming along, and it just brought me right back to when I was there with my grandpa when I was a little kid," he said.
"It's a great family tradition. It's what built this country. It's what feeds us all. It's great to do all that and just show people what it's like to see farming done the way it used to be done in years past."
The tractor show continues on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Among the activities going on will be antique tractor pulls, live music, a tractor parade, shingle mill, sawmill and kids pedal pull. Admission for the event is $7, and kids younger than 12 years old get in free.