Great Oregon Steam-Up celebrates everything steam-powered

The Great Oregon Steam-Up in Brooks has been showcasing antique machinery every summer since 1969. The machines on display can be as large as a crane or as small as a coffee grinder. Visitors can also watch demonstrations of sawmilling and threshing equipment, participate in a parade of steam-powered vehicles and ride miniature trains and trolleys.

Michelle Duchateau is the president of the Antique Powerland Museum Association at Powerland Heritage Park, which organizes the Steam-Up. She joins us to discuss this year’s festival and what’s kept visitors returning for over 50 years.

The following transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer:

Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. It’s going to hit 95 degrees this weekend in the Mid-Willamette Valley, but it might be even hotter in Brooks outside of Salem. That is the site of the 54th Annual Great Oregon Steam-Up, a celebration of all things steam-powered, from trains and trucks to farm equipment and even home appliances.

Michelle Duchateau is the president of the Antique Powerland Museum Association at Powerland Heritage Park, which puts on the Steam-Up. She joins us now. It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.

Michelle Duchateau: Thank you. It’s great to be here.

Miller: So what is the Powerland Museum or Powerland Heritage Parkland?

Duchateau: Powerland Heritage Park is a park with 14 individual 501(c)(3) museums that talk about the history of different types of engines, both standing and moving – vehicles, tractors, trains, trolleys and all of the above. We talk about the history of where it brought us our steam, the involvement and the evolution of all the tractors, and how that helped make life easier today.

Miller: That’s the permanent display, this whole constellation of museums there. What more do you add for this annual Steam-Up?

Duchateau: At the Steam-Up, everything is running. So we have at least 14 steam traction engines. We could have up to 22 steam traction engines. We have a steam-powered sawmill. We have a steam powered crane. They all operate so you could see all of this movement going on. [We have] John Deeres, farm mauls, International Harvesters, Briggs & Stratton stationary engines, and garden tractors, otherwise known as ride-on lawn mowers.

Miller: All of these steam-powered?

Duchateau: A lot of them [are] steam-powered. The stand-alone engines a lot of times are gasoline or diesel-run, but we have a lot of steam participants. There’s a steam one-eighth scale railroad that you can ride on that runs around a two-and-a-half(ish) mile track. [It] is very popular and very sought after when people arrive here at the park. We have a steam crane which moves big objects, used a lot of the railroads so that they could pick up cars, box cars and move them in one easy move. So that is operational. We have a steam sawmill that runs on steam with a boiler that we have to heat to get the energy and the movement for the sawmill to run. So a lot of steam things to see, in addition to your regular gas and diesel-run engines.

Miller: And are most of these privately owned?

Duchateau: Most of them are privately owned. So people bring them from all over to show off their toys. I personally own five of them along with my husband. That’s how I got into this. So we have three of them on show here this weekend. The other two are in the barn at home.

Miller: Did you grow up around steam engines? Is this deep in your family history?

Duchateau: It is not in my family history. It is in my husband’s family history. His grandfather used to farm out in the Sublimity area. We have pictures of grandpa on the steam engine. The stories told that grandpa would take my husband out to the field with him, and he would stand there and bounce up and down to the steady rhythm of the fly wheels going, and all of the noise and steam that was happening. So he loves the steam, he loves to watch it work. I’ve learned to love it. We’ve owned a steam engine since about 1990-ish.

Miller: You started with one and now you have five?

Duchateau: Yes, because if one is good, then five is better, right?

Miller: [Laughter] I guess so. Is that the case, for a lot of people there, that this is in their family, both the physical machines, but also the love for them goes back generations?

Duchateau: Yes, it does. The Steam-Up here started with a family called the Mikkelsons. They had a farm right outside of Silverton. They used to hold it there for years and years, and then it just got too big for that property. As they looked around, they tried several different locations, but then we ended up here. The grandson of that individual still brings his engines here to show, to play, and to share the knowledge and the love that he has for that. We have many generational-type families who are still here. It starts with grandpa, then dad, and now a son and grandson. So a lot of generational things happen because of those things.

Miller. What does it sound like when all of these machines are running at the same time?

Duchateau: Well, when they blow their whistles, it’s quite loud. It could be quite scary if you’re not used to it. But the engines run and they’re pretty quiet. People are very amazed at how quiet they are when they run. When they’re running on the gravel and the wheels are moving, then they’re loud, obviously. But as they’re sitting, they’re idling. It’s very quiet. It’s just very soothing. Then once they get running down the road, because most [are] all steel wheels up on the gravel, it makes a lot of noise and you know that they’re coming. But it’s a great sound. I love to hear that sound in the mornings when I get here early. And the days of the event are very quiet and then you could tell when everything starts warming up. They got their engines powered and just a little more noise, but it’s a great noise.

Miller: What does it take to get a steam engine running and ready to power these various vehicles, tools or appliances?

Duchateau: Well, obviously we can’t go to the gas station and fill up. So we have to … let me see if I got the right phrase … “have to clean the tubes.” So that’s where the big wire brush, just like Mary Poppins, how they went in, cleaned it with the brush and the whole bit. They brush the tubes, then they build a fire. Fire heats up the water, the water creates the steam, and that makes the traction engine have its power to move and to operate. So it takes a while. Usually about an hour to two hours prior to the start of the program, the steam traction owners and operators will be here starting their fire so that they can blow their whistles right at nine o’clock.

Miller: When I think about steam locomotives, for example, I think about huge coal furnaces. Are you all using coal still?

Duchateau: We are not. We use wood here. In the Midwest, they use a lot of coal because that’s readily available, but coal is not as readily here. So they use wood to burn, to make the energy that we need to get those traction engines going.

Miller: Why do you think it’s important to share this technological history with people? Why keep this going?

Duchateau: You know, so many times we forget how much harder life was back then. I mean, not that life is very easy right now, but they had to chop wood to get any type of thing. So it’s important to just share that history with our children and grandchildren so that they understand. I have a granddaughter who’s 14 and she plays on the engines. I have a daughter who’s 34 and she’s been running it since she was 12. My son was doing it also since we got the engines when he was about five. So, if nothing else, riding with him and having that same love for the engines that their dad has and that I have – it’s important to pass those things on just for history’s sake and to let them appreciate the modern conveniences that we have today.

Miller: Clearly, your family, they grew up with these machines and they played with them as five-year-olds. How do you engage other young people who didn’t grow up with them with these machines? How do you engage them at this event?

Duchateau: We have a program called the Youth Passport. And through this program, all youth are available to partake. They have to visit the museums, ask them questions and go on a seek-and-find mission. Once they answer [those] questions, they learn a little bit more about each museum, and why are we here, and what happened, and help with the revolution of technology. They get a little pin. But at the end of it, they gather all of them, they get a medallion saying that they’ve completed the Youth Passport program at the Great Oregon Steam-Up.

It has been very popular and it’s just growing in popularity – we have over 1,500 participants every year, some that come back every year to get that new medallion. It’s quite the badge of honor, so we do that and we encourage them to learn and to see. In addition to children taking their parents around, the parents and learning, too, about the various museums and the history involved with all of the machine units here. We find it very useful, very educational for them.

We have a S.T.E.A.M.’d Up for Kids that we hold in the spring that is geared towards the younger crowd, if you will. And it’s all hands-on related to science, technology, engineering, arts and math. So that we, again, show them how these machines all fit in, how they’ve evolved and all that.

Miller: I mentioned at the beginning it’s going to be 95 degrees throughout the Mid-Willamette Valley this weekend, by Sunday. Does that make for just a really hot Steam-Up?

Duchateau: It does in many ways. So we prepare. A lot of people will come early and we encourage them to do that. We have benches and shades for them to sit on to enjoy our parade of power at 1:30. We have water stations, we have places for cooling stations for them to sit in and visit. So we try to make it very comfortable for them and we have emergency staff on hand. We do the best we can. We hope everyone brings a hat, and they come and visit us to have a good time. It’s a great show.

Miller: Michelle, thanks very much.

Duchateau: Thank you.

Miller: Michelle Duchateau is the president of the Antique Powerland Museum Association at Powerland Heritage Park in Brooks. That is a site for the Great Steam-Up. It’s happening this weekend. This is the final of two weekends.

Contact “Think Out Loud®”

If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.