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Threshing grain took a significant amount of help in the harvest season. Multiple steps demanded people, machinery, and other resources be available to keep harvest progressing. This week’s Throwback Thursday shows the E.M. “Gene” Young threshing crew.

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This Dell Rapids farm, ca. 1918 had five barns, a large house and a windmill. The field has been cut and shocked. The bundles are waiting to be threshed.

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A 1906 photograph of the Elfring and Betz families on a Gaar-Scott steam engine pulling a Port Huron Thresher.

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Here is a fun photograph! This young fellow is taking his goats out for a leisurely drive. The nearly matching pair of goats are hitched to a child’s wagon. There are farm buildings in the background, yet the location and identification of the young driver is unknown.

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On April 6, 1917, the United States declared war on Germany. The first American infantry soldiers landed in France on June 26, 1917, to begin training for combat. American men either drafted or enlisted to fight in Europe for the duration of the war.

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When Little I began in 1921 it was strictly a livestock exhibition. It was patterned after the Chicago International Livestock Exhibition. The purpose of the South Dakota State College Little I was to offer students experience with fitting, training and showing livestock. In the following years more exhibits, booths and categories of competition were added, such as horticulture, fruit, meat, dairy and in 1949 the home economics.

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Today’s photo comes from our Leland Sudlow Photo Collection. Pictured is a group of 4-H club members participating in a tractor school in March 1946.

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With over two million pigs in the state, the swine industry brings in a significant amount money. ������Ƶ spent a great deal of effort to learn the best practices of raising these animals. Leeland Sudlow captured a part of this process.

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Tens of thousands of producers left the sheep business after Congress eliminated the National Wool Act Incentive program. Because so many producers went out of business, millions of ewes were exported or slaughtered.

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This print was published in Historical and Statistical Information respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. II (1884 reprint). Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, an early geographer, geologist, and ethnographer was commissioned by Congress to develop a comprehensive reference work about American Indian tribes.

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In 1891, the people of Madison, SD built the Lake Madison Chautauqua on the northwest shore of Lake Madison. The Grand Hotel was located on the Chautauqua grounds. To provide easy access to the Chautauqua grounds and hotel, Madison built a narrow gauge, steam railroad. The Milwaukee railroad later built a spur line from Madison to the Chautauqua grounds.

Chautauqua’s flourished in small communities across the country. They were especially popular in the Midwest. The Chautauqua Movement began in 1874 as a summer school for Sunday School teachers. Over the following decades its mission broadened to include adult education of all kinds. Chautauqua was designed to bring a “college outlook” to working- and middle-class Americans. Chautauqua sought to bring culture, education, and entertainment to rural areas. Chautauqua brought national and international speakers to audience that would otherwise not have had the opportunity to hear them speak. The economic depression of the 1930s ended the Chautauqua era. Organizers found it increasingly difficult the find funding for the event.

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For nearly 60 years, Otto Wolff was a sheep rancher in the northern plains and gained a reputation as a top wool producer. He was a field man and wool buyer for the South Dakota Cooperative Wool Growers Association.

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In today’s Throwback Thursday, creativity clearly shows. Edwin Hesby, from south of Volga, employs a wagon hoist to dump the corn into the elevator.

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1923 was a bad year for anthrax outbreaks across South Dakota. Newspapers from across the state were filled with reports of the disease plaguing farmers and ranchers. These photographs were taken in 1923 by Arthur W. Tompkins, Hamlin County Agent. 

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Written on the reverse of this cabinet card photograph is "Someones homestead in Lake Co." The two women sitting in chairs in front of their tar paper shack which is sodded part way up from the ground look ready for a good chat.

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