♪♪ [Kohlsdorf] Leading up to Labor Day weekend, Mount Pleasant, Iowa, hosts a reunion between antique farm machinery and the people who love it.

♪♪ [Man off-screen] There he goes.

[Kohlsdorf] Midwest Old Thresher's Reunion was organized in 1950 by four people who had attended a similar event in Illinois.

The first reunion featured only 15 steam engines.

Today, Midwest Old Threshers Reunion welcomes around 40,000 people throughout the week long celebration to explore 160 acres of agricultural history.

[Grant Davidson] Well, typically, we have just over 1,000 tractors that come to the event, over 100 different steam engines, 200 plus antique cars and trucks.

There's demonstrations with steam trains and with the tractor engines over there doing the threshing and the baling of the wheat and all the different things, you have horse demonstrations.

There's demonstrations everywhere.

♪♪ [Kohlsdorf] Every day of the reunion, organizers present the Cavalcade of Power, a parade demonstrating how these machines, big and small, were operated in their heyday.

The Old Threshers Midwest Reunion draws people from far outside the Midwest.

Every year, the Bush family travels from Lebanon, Tennessee for the chance to operate one of these classic steam tractors.

[William Bush] I think they're a piece of history.

Nobody sees them anymore.

Nobody will heard of them.

There's cool history to them.

There's a lot of science and interesting stuff on how they work.

I guess I enjoy that part.

[Kohlsdorf] Steam locomotives are complicated machines.

Boilers produce steam to drive the tractor.

Before any of that can happen, operators tend fires in the bellies of these beasts to warm them up for work.

[William Bush] I'd say probably the most complicated part is putting water in it.

You're having to put water that's atmospheric pressure into a boiler that's 70 pounds.

You know, there's a lot of science in it.

[Kohlsdorf] The Midwest Old Threshers Reunion is a tradition in reuniting antique farm equipment with people who cherish them.

Highway 27 travelers have a chance to experience this antique working group firsthand in Mount Pleasant during Labor Day weekend.

[Grant Davidson] Where are you going to come and find all this agricultural heritage in one place and at this scale?

It's just a great, friendly atmosphere here.

♪♪