Grain Harvest + ‘Tractor Wars II’

Name: Grain Harvest + ‘Tractor Wars II’
Start: 2026-07-25T09:00:00-05:00
End: 2026-07-25T16:00:00-05:00

two women in period dresses tossing grain from wagon into thresher

Details

Date:: Saturday, July 25
Time:: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
Website:: www.lhf.org

Our original community event!

Saturday, July 25 • 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

All activities included with General Admission

Every year since 1970, we’ve invited guests to help us bring in the harvest using methods from centuries past. A key part of the harvest was threshing, or separating seeds from stalks.

Walnut Hill: See antique tractors from the Central Iowa Tractor Club on the field south of the Church of the Land from 9 a.m. to noon. Watch a tractor parade down Main Street at 12:30 p.m.

1850 Pioneer Farm: Try threshing by hand with an old-fashioned flail, 9:30–11 a.m. and 1–4 p.m.

1900 Farm: Demonstrations of a gasoline-powered thresher, 10–11 a.m. and 1–4 p.m.

Be sure to allow time for the tractor cart ride to and from the farm sites

Walnut Hill: Tractor parade, 12:30 p.m.

Screening of the Iowa PBS documentary “Tractor Wars II”

Learning Center, 11 a.m.

“Tractor Wars II” focuses on the years 1929-1959 when companies worked to bring mechanized farming to everyday rural life. International Harvester, Ford and John Deere fought for market supremacy through the Great Depression and World War II. By the 1950s they were all looking at how their designs fit into the equation of power and affordability.

RSVP requested

Followed by a panel discussion celebrating the International Year of the Woman Farmer

Panelists:

Erin Herbold-Swalwell
Erin is a lawyer who chairs the Board of Living History Farms and works at the Iowa Farm Bureau. She grew up on a farm near Mingo, so agriculture has always been a big part of her life, and her interest in the law followed that. Shespecializes in general ag law, including administrative law, business law, environmental law, real estate, and estate planning and probate.

Leah Maeder
Leah is a senior producibility scientist at Corteva Agriscience who holds a master’s degree in crop science and statistics from North Carolina State University and a Ph.D. in agricultural and horticultural plant breeding from the University of Nebraska. She grew up on an Iowa farm and maintains a vegetable, fruit, and flower garden at her home in Indianola.

Moderator: Dave Miller
Senior producer of “Tractor Wars” and longtime executive producer of Iowa PBS’ “Market to Market”