Thrashing Show Season

Starting on Labor Day weekend and continuing for three weekends there’s a string of threshing shows that happen in North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota (a note on the title: the correct word is “threshing” but all the old-timers always referred to it as “thrashing”). Starting Labor Day weekend is the massive Western Minnesota Steam Thresher’s Reunion in Rollag, MN. This is the biggest show in the region, not only featuring steam, gas, and diesel farm equipment, but also construction equipment, vehicles, sawmills, a machine shop, a train, and so much more, all surrounded by historic buildings. There’s so much going on its hard to even cover the grounds in a day.

The next weekend there’s a smaller show in Drake, ND, simply known as the Drake Threshing Show, as well as one in Andover, SD, the James Valley Threshing Show. The next weekend is the Central Dakota Steam Thresher’s Reunion in New Rockford, ND. There’s also two other well-known shows in North Dakota that happen in July, the Crosby Threshing Bee in Crosby, ND, and the Makoti Threshing Show in Makoti, ND.

This year I made it to WMSTR in Rollag, the Drake Show, and the CNDSTR in New Rockford. The above image is from the New Rockford show. The next group of images is from the WMSTR Rollag show.

The following photos are from the Drake Threshing Show

And finally images from the CNDSTR in New Rockford, ND