Albany Pioneer Days Brings Back The Feel Of The 1920s

ALBANY (WJON News) -- An event committed to celebrating the history of central Minnesota is taking place over the next four days. Albany Pioneer Days starts  Thursday and has a ton in store for its 50th Anniversary. There will be antique displays, a working print shop, a garden tractor pull, and more.

Stearns County Pioneer Club President Greg Fuchs says they will have 50 Class A Prarie Tractors on hand too:

"Prairie Tractors are tractors that were built in the early 1900s from like 1900 to roughly through 1930. These are big steel-wheeled gas engine tractors, probably weighing around 40 tons, or excuse me, 20 tons, 40,000 pounds."

He says they will also have Wheat Land Tractors and close to 200 antique tractors in all. Fuchs continued with saying they try to replicate how things were in the 1920s including showing all the work tractors used to do:

"We've got kind of like a half-scale representation of a sawmill, a shingle mill, a small bailer, we've got some tractors doing, running demonstrations there but we've also got our large sawmill where we've got steam engines powering the sawmill, our threshing area has got gas tractors so you can go down there and see corn shilling, grain threshing, silo filling, and these are all run by tractors."

Get our free mobile app

Fuchs says they will have a tractor parade at 4:00 p.m. on Friday with close to 200 Prairie and Wheatland Tractors, and then their regular parades on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. The cost to attend is $12 a day, or $25 for a season pass. Kids 12 and under are free. Pioneer Days runs Thursday through Sunday in Albany.

READ MORE FROM AUTHOR PAUL HABSTRITT:

• Trump Rally Packs Them In [PHOTO GALLERY]
• American Pickers In Search of Minnesota Rusty Gold
• Linden Hill Follows Yellow Brick Road To A New Discovery
• Jason Mraz Brings Pop Music Mix To The Ledge [PHOTOS]
• Surprise Guest Wows Crowd At Yacht Fest [PHOTOS]
• See What Happens When The Sun Goes Down At Sleepover Safari