Steam And Gas Engine Show In Pawnee

By Rick Wells, The News On 6

PAWNEE, OK -- An excellent history lesson is available in Pawnee this weekend.

The 43rd Steam and Gas Engine Show is an opportunity to see how work was done in rural Oklahoma. Even a little rainy weather's not slowing the event down.

"When you step out of your car you step back 80 to 100 years," show president Robert Mars said.

Some of the steam tractors are 100 years old.

"It'll thrash wheat, it'll cut wood," Mars said of one tractor. "Anything that needed power on the farm, this will supply the power."

Someone who owned one a century ago could start in west Texas in the spring and work his way north thrashing grain and grinding corn through the summer and early fall and load it on a railcar and head back south for the winter.

Ross Staggs of Muskogee showed off a medium-sized steam engine that weights about 20,000 pounds when full of water and coal. Staggs has been going to Pawnee for the show for 20 years and says he loves keeping the steam tractor running.

"When you work on something and get it fixed and it works like you thought it would, you always feel good," he said.

The show is Friday through Sunday afternoon. Gates open at 8 a.m. each day. Admission is $7 for adults, and children 12 and under get in free.

For more information call the Pawnee Chamber of Commerce at (918) 762-2108.