WOODLAND, Calif. – History came alive on 150 acres of Northern California farmland in June when thousands of people from around the world turned out for a festival featuring one of the biggest displays of antique farm and construction machinery in the U.S. “The Best Show on Tracks” drew a crowd of almost 15,000 people to the Dan Best Ranch outside Woodland, California. Visitors experienced the sights, the sounds and the smells of more than 600 early 20th century tractors, harvesters and threshers. But the undeniable star of the show was a completely restored 1905 Holt Harvester pulled by a team of 27 mules in a field demonstration that took onlookers back in time to see exactly how grain was harvested on America’s farms in the early 20th century.

 “The mules were the biggest draw,” said Lonny Wunder, event manager and board member of the Heidrick Ag History Center, which organized the event. “A 92-year-old man came in wanting to know where the 27-mule team was. He used to run one in Minnesota when he was 10 years old – said he hadn’t done it in 80 years and he wanted to see it again.”

Peterson Tractor had on display a brand new state-of-the-art 14M CAT motor grader and D6T track-type tractor, both positioned alongside many decades of former versions, each with innovations considered “high tech” for their time. Also on display was a wall with historical pictures of a few of the machines that Buster Peterson had invented. “I heard a number of people comment that they had actually operated one of the Quad D9Gs that Peterson developed, and some remembered seeing the giant triple 657s at work on the canal in the 60s,” said Bob Jung, Peterson’s VP of Sales who attended the event. “It was definitely a walk down memory lane for many of these seasoned tractor veterans.”

Peterson customer, Glen Ghilotti, President of Team Ghilotti, was instrumental in the organization and success of the event. Glen is an avid antique tractor enthusiast and board member of the local chapter of ACMOC - the Antique Caterpillar Machinery Owners Club - who hosts a weekly crew of hobbyist/mechanics out at his place to work on their current renovation project.

Visitors from 29 U.S. states, Canada, Australia and England flew in to see the show, flooding the small town of Woodland nearby. Many attendees came to learn more about the history of the tractors and farm machinery, which built the family farms of the early 20th century and paved the way for America to become an international leader in food production. But for other folks, the chance to get up close and personal with these mammoth machines of agriculture during the parades and demonstrations was the big draw.

 “These are machines that are 80-90 years old, and that is interesting to people,” said Wunder. “You can see them in a museum, but you don’t get to feel them, hear them, smell them. Out here, you get to see them working in the field, or just running, so you can hear that very distinct chugga-chugga sound.”