Sandwich Fair Times 2026final - Flipbook - Page 9
67th Annual
Fall Festival of Crafts
9 a.m. to 4 p.m. • Thursday, Sept. 24
at the Sandwich Fairgrounds
1401 Suydam Rd.
Quality Lighting & Fixtures
Admission $5/person
200 Crafters • Food Vendors
CE IL ING LIGHTS • WA L L LIGHT S
MULTISY STEM • FA NS • EX TERIORS
LA NDS CA PING • DÉCOR
FREE PARKING
Route 34 in Plano • 630.552.0001
Held rain or shine!
www.lightsourcelighting.com
No strollers in the buildings
Th e Power of th e Past
If you include the machines, the oldest fairgoers
every year are probably the
antique engines. These pieces going back to the early
20th century come from an
era between animal powered
work and electricity. Most
shown at the Sandwich Fair
run on gasoline. There’s also
a steam traction engine.
“It’s all kinds of stu昀昀,” says
Roger Peterson, who oversees the antique farm equipment entries. “Old antique
farm equipment, gas engines, the old
hit-and-miss gas engines, tractors on one end of
the train circle, our old antique 昀椀re truck, and
construction equipment. And then, you know,
we have the farm equipment.”
While we usually think of engines powering vehicles today, engines then were coupled to various machines to pump water, shell corn, bale
hay, make ice cream, and more. Visit the antique
engine area at the fair and you may see some of
these processes in action.
Many of the engines could well have powered
the Sandwich Fair and agricultural operations
surrounding it a century ago. The Sandwich
Manufacturing Company is prominent among the manufacturers. The Sandwich Early Day Engine Club has 132 members
who work or have worked on preserving them for their historical and cultural signi昀椀cance and because they get immense
satisfaction from the challenge.
The club’s acting treasurer, Joe Richmond, says, “It’s a fun
hobby and a lot of us guys just love how they sound when they’re
running.” He entered the hobby
with an Ottawa log saw engine in
1978. He also got an antique car.
“We’ll take an engine not running, you take it all, disassemble
it, go through it, put new rings in
it, clean out the cylinders, bore it
out, sleeve it, whatever it’s going
to need.”
Of course, when an engine’s not
available new anymore, eventu© Nelson Publishing, Inc.
ally parts for it aren’t
either. Richmond says,
“We do a lot of our own
machine work, because
you can’t just go out really and buy the parts.”
Already made parts
can come from someone else’s engine. Peterson says, “Sometimes you can 昀椀nd somebody that collects
them and they have one that wasn’t whole and it would cost
too much to make whole. So they
have parts they’re selling.”
That’s also a way to acquire a
whole engine, says Peterson.
“Some of them have been in their
families for years,
maybe 100 years,
and they kept
them. And then there’s people who have been
interested in them and have collected them, either buying from a private individual or an auction or like that.”
Outbid at an auction, Richmond asked the
buyer to get in touch when he no longer wanted
the water pump they competed for. When that
day came, he bought it and another engine–an
anniversary present for his wife, Karen, who
now owns three antique engines.
Richmond would like to see younger people
keep getting involved. He says the Sandwich Early Day Engine
Club has members ages 18 to 90. The club awards scholarships
for students going into automotive and other mechanical 昀椀elds.
Club get-togethers
are
an opportunity for experienced members of any
age to mentor
newcomers of
any age.
There’s more
information
about the club,
its events (including an annual show on the fairgrounds in late
June), and Sandwich engines online at www.sandwichengineclub.com.
2026 Sandwich Fair Times
9
