The culture, part one: the Maumee Valley Antique Steam & Gas Association

1951 or 1954 – the present, the conflict carried in the entry

A threshermen's club on Carroll Road: The county's antique-tractor culture has an institution and an address. The Maumee Valley Antique Steam & Gas Association was incorporated in 1954 as the Old Time Threshers and Sawmill Operators Association, and its shows began on the James Whitbey farm on Carroll Road, northwest of Fort Wayne — a thresherman's ground hosting the machines of the steam era within living memory of their working years. The club's own first-show year is carried two ways in the record, and both are printed: the association's annual numbering, echoed in Farm Collector's contemporary show reports — a sixth annual show in 1956 and a seventh in 1957 before a crowd reported at some 15,000, and a twentieth in 1970 — points to a first show in 1951; a Farm Collector / Steam Traction account dates the first show to 1954, the incorporation year. The numbering evidence runs deeper than one article: the last show at the Whitbey farm, in 1977, was billed the 27th annual, which fits a 1951 start and not a 1954 one. The conflict stands in print; the weight of the numbering is on 1951.

The Whitbey years: James Whitbey's own collection anchored the early shows — his engines, in Farm Collector's report of the fourth annual show (carried by the Allen County Genealogical Society), included a 20-horsepower M. Rumely and a 6-horsepower Leffel upright. The 1956 show ran 25 engines and plowed eight acres by steam power. Whitbey died in 1977, and the 27th annual show that year was the last on his farm — a quarter-century of threshing reunions on one man's ground, a few miles from the city whose Agricultural Works had built threshing machines a century before.

New Haven, and the pull track: In 1978 the association reorganized under its present Maumee Valley name and moved its show to Jefferson Township Park, east of New Haven, on grounds at 1720 South Webster Road — and, by the billing of its 2003 show as the 26th annual, restarted its count from the move. The grounds grew the apparatus of tractor culture in dated steps recorded in the club's own history: a tractor pull track installed in 1982, pull scales in 1991, a kiddy pull sled in 1997, the pull track moved to the south grounds in 1998, and lights for evening pulls in 1999. Feature brands at the summer show began in 1987, John Deere first. The 1998 show displayed a 1904 Hart-Parr 22-40 that the club's history calls one of the oldest running gasoline tractors in the United States. In 2003 the show hosted the J.I. Case Heritage Foundation's 17th Annual Exposition, the largest summer show to that date, and the association has also filled the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum for a spring show — Farm and Dairy's rusty-iron columnist describes a Minneapolis-Moline feature there, with Cockshutt and Co-op tractors on the floor. The 49th annual show under the restarted count was scheduled for 23–26 July 2026.

Sources:

1. Maumee Valley Antique Steam & Gas Association, the club's own history (maumeevalley.org) — incorporation in 1954 as the Old Time Threshers and Sawmill Operators Association; the first shows at the James Whitbey farm on Carroll Road; the 1978 reorganization and move to Jefferson Township Park, 1720 South Webster Road, New Haven; the pull track (1982), scales (1991), kiddy pull sled (1997), track move (1998), and evening-pull lights (1999); feature brands from 1987; the 1904 Hart-Parr 22-40 of the 1998 show; the 2003 J.I. Case Heritage Foundation exposition; the 49th annual show scheduled 23–26 July 2026.
2. Farm Collector show reports, including the report of the fourth annual show carried by the Allen County Genealogical Society — Whitbey's 20 hp M. Rumely and 6 hp Leffel upright; the 1956 show (25 engines, eight acres plowed by steam); the 1957 crowd of some 15,000; the annual numbering (6th in 1956, 7th in 1957, 20th in 1970, 27th and last at the Whitbey farm in 1977); and the conflicting account dating the first show to 1954.
3. Farm and Dairy, "Let's Talk Rusty Iron" — the association's spring show at the Allen County War Memorial Coliseum, Fort Wayne, with a Minneapolis-Moline feature and Cockshutt and Co-op tractors exhibited.