Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Spectators follow the tractor line in a trailer pulled by a vintage McCormick-Dearing.
Tractors from the 1920s to the '50s plow the 18-acre field along the Palouse River Oct. 20.
Mechanical issues first need to be addressed for an old Caterpillar before it entered the field.
An estimated 200 people converged on farm ground off Manning Road northwest of Colfax Oct. 20 for the 27th annual Plow Day at the Morgan Ranch.
Started by David Morgan, 86, and son Alan, 66, the event has kept on each year since 1992 as farmers and hobbyists bring in period tractors to plow an 18-acre stretch by the Palouse River.
"We took the fence posts out, but earlier we used to lean against the fence and recollect to each other how we used to do it, and how we think these young guys should be doing it," said the elder Morgan. "It's a social thing."
Another 25 acres were also plowed with crawler tractors on an upper patch of Morgan land.
The vehicles used Saturday span from the late 1920s to the early '50s. The day also included a catered lunch and rides for spectators on a trailer pulled by an early McCormick-Dearing.
The Morgans have grown wheat or barley on the flat ground by the river since its last summer fallow in 1937.
Its plowing again this year followed a long line toward an old barn built in the early '50s by David, his brother John and their late father, Willard.
"To keep hay dry," David said of the structure. "Timbers and logs pulled out of the river after the floods in the springtime."
David first moved to the land in 1937 at age five.
With the ground now plowed for another fall, seeding will be done this week by Alan and his son Justin, David's grandson.
"It's dry as popcorn out there. It's all dust," Morgan said.
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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