Mower County Fair
Thursday, August 10, 2023
The Mower County Fair in Austin, MN. The County Fair shares the same location as the Mower County Historical Society and during fair week they have all the old historical buildings open for viewing. Here is the inside of the church building.
The old country store is outfitted with products typical of the era.
The transportation building has several old buggies and sleighs. This old Motel sign is hanging in the transportation building.
One of the buildings is entirely dedicated to the history of Hormel; a critical economic driver for the city of Austin, MN.
The blacksmith’s shop is one of my favorites. They have a functional forge that a gentleman named Dan was operating. Dan said he was 85 years old but still felt young. He heated up an old nail and had me pound it flat on the anvil. What a fun experience. He called my creation a “letter opener”, and with some imagination, it could be exactly that. I have it as a souvenir, a big thanks to Dan.
The railroad and train depot buildings are particularly interesting. This is the wheel mechanism on an old passenger car.
The Austin Historical Society is the final retirement site for this steam engine #1004.
“The 1004 was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1909 and began its service in 1910 for the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad.”
“The last time the Milwaukee Road used a steam engine was March 16-17, 1957 on the night route to LaCross and back.”
“Upon retirement in July 1957, the 1004 was donated to the City of Austin and moved to the Mower County Historical Society.”
The 1004 is a ten-wheel engine, is 65 feet long, and weighs 154 tons! In its 56 years of service, it traveled over three million miles.
-Information from interpretive plaque on site.
Lisa operating the hand-crank siren on the old fire engine.
The “earless” goats. We are not sure what the deal is here, but I sure hope this breed comes this way and they don’t cut ears off intentionally. They have a lot of these at the fairs.
This young man was out “exercising” his hog. Appeared to be practicing walking him before going into the ring to show.
The hogs come in all different colors, but the classic pink pig is still my favorite.
This earless goat appears to have a flag of Japan for a paint job.
Okay, we found more info on these earless goats. According to Google: “LaManch, American breed of dairy goat known for its much-reduced external ears.”
It’s good to know they come this way and are not having their ears cut off.
This guys ears make up for the others.
The draft horses are always impressive to see.
This gal has a racing stripe down her back.
We really appreciated this chicken’s colorful paintjob.
This is the way the corn looks when they harvest it. Unlike corn on the cob for general consumption, this is very dry and hard. In fact, if the water content is too when when harvested, the farmer will have to pay a drying fee to reduce the water content to acceptable levels.
Seeing gourds at the fairs always reminds us that summer is growing late and fall is just around the corner.
Whistle at the train depot.
This old wood burning stove and oven remind me of a near identical one that they had at an old fishing/hunting camp in upstate New York. The cabin belonged to the family of one of my father’s employees and each spring we would spend a long weekend there fishing. Each morning we would have breakfast of eggs and bacon made on a stove nearly identical to this one.
