TERRITORIAL MAGAZINE 21 By Barbara Oringderff n the summer of 2014, I received a telephone call from Janis Smith, who lives in Elkhart, KS. Janis and I had never met, but she was familiar with the Territorial Magazine and wanted to know if I would be interested in doing a farming and general contracting story about her family, the Garrabrants, who settled in the farming community of Funk, NE in 1892. When Janis told me that she had lots of great old steam engine photographs, I was hooked! These captions were written by brothers Burnard and Glen Garrabrant in 1979. (Glen Garrabrant was the father of Janis Garrabrant Smith.) Left to Right 1. Orin Garrabrant; 2. John Devoy; 3. Dad - Wilbur Garrabrant, at age 20; 4. R. L. Burnam; 5. unknown; 6. unknown; 8 & 7. Granddad - William Garrabrant, and Aunt Effie Garrabrant with her little dog. I
Transcript
T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E 21FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
By Barbara Oringderffn the summer of 2014, I received a telephone call from Janis Smith, who lives in Elkhart, KS. Janis and I had never met, but she was familiar with the Territorial Magazine and wanted to know if
I would be interested in doing a farming and general contracting story about her family, the Garrabrants, who settled in the farming community of Funk, NE in 1892. When Janis told me that she had lots of great old steam engine photographs, I was hooked!
These captions were written by brothers Burnard and Glen Garrabrant in 1979. (Glen Garrabrant was the father of Janis Garrabrant Smith.) Left to Right 1. Orin Garrabrant; 2. John Devoy; 3. Dad - Wilbur Garrabrant, at age 20; 4. R. L. Burnam; 5. unknown; 6. unknown; 8 & 7. Granddad - William Garrabrant, and Aunt Effie Garrabrant with her little dog.
I
22 T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
I invited Janis and her husband, Howard to come to my office in Garden City for a meeting, which they promptly did, and we began planning this article. For me,
mation that it was somewhat overwhelming. This family made a huge impact on the Phelps County, NE community from 1892 un-til the Great Depression, when road grading contracts became scarce and farmers were
“Threshing for Everett Anderson. Glen’s outfit, Big Engine and wood separator. We ran eight racks if we were in the field, but if they had to haul the bundles into a barn yard it required ten or more racks. We always used four men in the field to pitch the bundles on to the racks. We threshed eight rack loads per hour and used the first rack in the morning as a measure of time for greasing the separator. That meant we greased every hour. In an 11 hour day we would thresh 88 loads of bundles. In fact I would say we probably averaged a little more than that. Two men couldn’t load the separator to capacity so shock threshing we only got 1,400 to 1,600 bushels per day.”
“Grandad Garrabrant is standing by the racks they used when they were burning straw in the engine. Dad said it took 4 to 5 loads like this to run the little engine a day threshing. That was the 25x75 Russell Engine. It would use about 1,800 to 2,000 pounds of coal to do the same job.”
Fuel and Water Consumption Shock Threshing:
Little Engine 25 x 75Coal - 1,700 lbs.
Water 1,700 gallon
Big Engine 30 x 90 Compound 1,700 lbs.Water 1,400 gallon
They could do 80 acres or 88-100 racks loads of
bundles in a eleven hour day.Average 2,000 bu. per day
this has been an unusual story to work with because there are so many wonder-ful family photographs, and so much documented infor-
T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E 23FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
starting to switch from steam thresh-ing engines to modern combines. In 1935, the Garrabrants’ two steam threshing outfits spent about 100 days threshing. In 1936 they operated only one steam engine, and in 1942 dur-
ing World War II, Wilbur Garrabrant had their little Russell steam engine cut up and the once proud Russell engine brought $86 as scrap iron. The following story, written by Burnard Garrabrant and Glen Garra-
“This is an example of headed stacks. These are really small stacks. We could have threshed two or more like this in a day if the fields were not too far apart. We figured 16 stacks or eight sets per day. “
brant (the father of Janis Garrabrant Smith) in 1979, and edited by Janis for this magazine, offers a fascinating look at the evolutionary changes in agricul-ture and how it affected the life of this unusual Phelps County, NE family.
“Wagon train of corn headed to the elevator in Funk. There was a log chain under the wagons and all wagons were hooked to that chain to transfer the power to the back wagon. In 1896 till 1900 the road ditches were small enough an engine could swing from one fence to the other and a train of seven wagons would follow around the square corner.”
24 T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
“Threshing late in the fall or winter. The tender is covered with canvas to keep the straw dry.” This is the Northwest Giant Steam Traction Engine, which was the first steam trac-tion engine purchased by William Garrabrant.
theSOLUTION a safer animal health & sorting system
molymfg.com • 785-472-3388“No need to re-invent the wheel--Just do it!”
®
msilenceraxx
TM
•Processing•Sorting•Loading•Unloading•Animal Health Needs
for:
Qty. 3-60 ft. X 10 ft. Holding PensQty. 3-64 ft. X 10 ft. Holding/Sorting PensQty. 10-10 ft. Animal Entry/Exit Gate
(numerous configurations available)
True Self-Standing, Adjustable Panels
adjusts for ground contour; concrete not a necessity.
2-Walk-Thru Alleys for People = Added Safety
2-Day
Setup
Hydraulic 3-Way Sort Gate Module
T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E 25FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
MEMBER FDIC
Sterling
1-(620)-278-2161
Lyons
(620) 257-2321
Chase
(620) 938-2416
Every agriculture entity needs to inquire about equipment leasing as a cash management tool
We lease both new and used equipment Call Steve today for a payment quote
888-906-3125
First Bank Leasing
26 T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
William Garrabrant, his wife Eliz-abeth and sons, Orin, 14; Wilbur, 12; Oscar, 7, and Roy, 3 arrived in Hold-rege March 12, 1892 from Kenny, Il-linois. They had an immigrant car on the Burlington Railroad, and Wil-liam brought their horses, cattle, ma-chinery and furniture. The family settled on a farm east of Holdrege in the Funk area. A daughter, Effie was born in 1894. William soon started a business that was to last 50 years, first doing custom work with horse power and a corn sheller. He supplemented the family income working in the engine rooms of the Holdrege Flour Mill and Holdrege Brick Yard. In 1896, William purchased a Northwest Thresher Co. New Gi-ant steam engine and separator for custom shelling and threshing. The Northwest, also known by the Gar-rabrant family as “the Giant” was 14 horsepower with a clutch and gears
so it was self-propelled, and could be steered without horses on a tongue. The fuel they used in the engine de-pended on what they were doing. When shelling corn they burned corn cobs, and while threshing they burned straw. Wood was satisfactory when it was available, and coal was ideal but cost money. One winter the Gi-ant worked shelling corn for 90 days at the elevator in Sacramento, NE. The Giant was used from 1896 un-til 1905. Sons Orin and Wilbur were young men helping with the contract business, shelling corn and threshing. (Oscar died 1899 at 14 years and Eliz-abeth died in 1903 at 47.) Wilbur mar-ried in 1903 at age 23. Wilbur and Maude’s first-born, a girl died as an infant. (Burnard was born in 1905.) William had a separator with a self feeder but it didn’t have a blower or so-called wind stacker. The threshed straw and chaff were removed from the rear of the machine by a straw
carrier, which dropped the material on a second carrier or elevator, that swung in a 180 degree arc and el-evated the straw up on to the straw pile. A fire destroyed the separator. Fred Horn, a neighbor, had a sepa-rator but no engine. The Garrabrants teamed up with Mr. Horn, as his separator required more power that the Giant could furnish. The Giant was sold in 1905 to a man north of the Platte River. He tried to ford the Platte River near Brady Island and sank the Giant in quicksand. It was never recovered. In 1905 the Garrabrants ordered a Russell engine and separator from the Russell factory in Massillon, Ohio. Orin (27) and Wilbur (25) were tak-ing over the machine business. Later this engine would be called “Little Engine”. The engine had 25 draw bar horsepower x 75 belt horsepow-er. The separator was 36 inches x 60 inches. Work was plentiful.
THE GARRABRANT FAMILY
T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E 27FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
The wheat was cut with binders. Some was threshed directly from the shocks, but more than half the farm-ers stacked it to be threshed any time from August until January. In 1905, Phelps County was young. The farmsteads and towns were be-ing built up, and demand for building material was great. The Garrabrants decided to start a brick yard. The
little engine furnished the power to pull the plug mill. The decision gave the engine work during cold winter months when it would have been idle from threshing and grading roads. In 1906 William built a two-story frame house in Funk. (Orin, Roy & Effie were children at home.) In 1907 Wilbur hired an expert
Stack Threshing Bundles:
Little Engine 25 x 75Coal - 1,700 lbs. Water - 1,700 gallons
Big EngineCoal - 1,650 lbs. Water - 1,650 gallons
They could do 100 acres or 12 stacks with lots of straw in an eleven hour day
Average 2,000 bu. per day
Stack Threshing Headed Grain:
Little Engine 25 x 75Coal - 1,950 lbs. Water - 1,950 gallons
Big EngineCoal - 1,800 lbs. Water - 1,800 gallons
They could do 150 acres or 16 stacks with very little straw in an eleven hour day
Average 3,600 bu. per day
Coal Cost: $6.00 to $8.00 per ton.Along the Burlington Railroad they
bought “Broad Head” coal. And along the Union Pacific Railroad
they bought “Rock Springs” coal.
Dodge City, KS Great Bend, KS Ulysses, KS (800) 794-0172 (800) 264-4056 (800) 472-9238
murphytractor.com
28 T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
brick layer to construct a brick home using brick from their brick yard. Wil-bur had son, Burnard and daughter, Frances. This would become the head-quarters for the businesses: thresh-ing, road grading and selling brick from their yard in Funk. The expert bricklayer didn’t show up, so Wil-bur and his father, William built the house and learned to lay brick. The brick yard was a good business during the building boom when homestead-ers and small towns were developing. The Garrabrant family started laying bricks themselves so they could sell more bricks, and they added bricklay-ing, carpentry work and cement work to their businesses. They construct-ed several store buildings and many basements and foundations in and around Funk. The demand for bricks later slowed down, and then a fire de-stroyed the brick yard. A spark from a locomotive set the plant on fire in 1913. It was not insured and a total loss. In 1913 Orin, William’s eldest son, went to Colorado to homestead. Orin farmed in Colorado until his death in
1937. Roy, the fourth son, went to Colorado to homestead in 1914. They were in Washington County. Effie also moved to Colorado to marry Ray McFarlin. They farmed and ranched at Elba, CO, and retired in Akron in the 1950s. In 1914, the little engine and sep-arator were shipped to Colorado to break sod, thresh and grade roads. They bought a 10-bottom John Deere to break sod. They then found they could run the engine faster with 8 bottoms and work more acres a day. William and his second son, Wil-bur, ordered the Big Engine to replace the 25 X 75 little Russell engine. The big engine was another Russell out-fit, 30x90 Russell compound No. 1314 and another 36x60 inch separator. The compound meant the steam was used twice before it was exhaust-ed, which increased economy. The 30x90 Russell, new, cost $2,450 plus freight from the factory at Massillon, Ohio, shipped by rail to Funk. It ar-rived on Decoration Day 1915. The engine overall size was 9’6”
wide x 19’ long X 10’ high. The drive wheels each weighed 3,000 pounds with diameter of 66”, x 24” face with 2” lugs. Flywheel diameter was 42” x 14” face and weight 920 pounds. Weight of the engine with coal and water was 32,000 pounds or 16 tons. In about 1915, farmers were begin-ning to harvest wheat with a header. Transition was quite rapid from the binder to the header. By 1920, 50 per-cent of the grain was being headed. By 1925, 75 percent of the small grain was headed. The threshing of head-ed stacks sometimes lasted as late as Christmas. The work day was from 7 a.m. un-til 7 p.m. with one hour out at noon. The work week was Monday until Saturday night. In order to start at 7 a.m. the engineer had to have his fire started by 5 a.m., go to breakfast at 6 a.m. and when he returned to the machine the steam would be up so he was ready to start. We never fired up on Sunday, but most Sundays there was some repair work to do and the boiler had to be washed out
“The Northwest Giant Steam Traction Engine and corn sheller on a farm north of Funk, NE.”
T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E 29FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
every two weeks. During World War I, it was al-most impossible to get men. In fact,
bur couldn’t get an engineer so he had to take Burnard out of school. Burnard was 11 years old, but he took a man’s place in the crew as the engineer. Wilbur Garrabrant’s
“I like this picture as it shows both outfits. The compound and the steel separator to the left and the Little Engine to the right with the wood separator. The Big Engine was compounded which meant the steam worked in the high pressure cylinder and when it was exhausted, worked in the low pressure cylinder. This increased its economy. If the two engines were doing the same work the compound would run on about 400 lbs. less coal per day. The Little Engine was a 25 x 75 and the Big Engine was 30 x 90. The Little Engine was a simple engine, in other words it used the steam in its cylinder and exhausted it to the atmosphere.”
two boys had both grown up work-ing with their father. By 1920 Wil-bur owned and operated the busi-nesses. In 1923 it was apparent that the little engine in Colorado would
Estimated cost for operating the engine and separator per day:
$6.00 Engineer$6.00 Separator Man$4.00 Water Hauler
$1.00 Team Of Horses For Water Tank$6.00 For Coal (For Grading Roads)
$1.00 Grease and Oil$1.00 Drive Belt
$1.00 Cylinder Teeth
Drive belts cost from $100 to $140For the most part the cost was small,
however, in the event of a major repair it could amount to several hundred dollars.
one winter, stack threshing was not complete and the machine was run-ning in January and February. Wil-
“Wagon train loaded with sand for brick work (in the Garrabrant Brick Factory. Even with the 25 h.p. engine they still pulled the tender and seven wagons because of corners.”
30 T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
be more useful back in Nebraska. When it came back, it was used for threshing while the big engine was fired up 220 days for the combined road grading and threshing season. In the 1930s the Depression stopped the road grading contracts for county and state roads. In 1935 the two threshing outfits together added up over 100 days of threshing, but there were so many combines be-ing purchased just one machine was operated in 1936. The little engine did not do as much work as the big engine. It was in perfect condition when Wilbur had it cut up in 1942 as part of the war ef-fort. It brought $86 as scrap iron. In 1958, the Holdrege Junior Chamber of Commerce cooper-ated with Glen and Burnard Gar-rabrant to exhibit the big engine outfit during Holdrege’s Diamond Jubilee celebration. The engine hadn’t turned a wheel for 22 years, but after the boiler had been tested, it was fired up and ran like a top. The equipment was exhibited for seven days and ran in three par-ades. Twice they pulled the separa-tor and threshing outfit, and once they pulled the grader as a grading outfit. There were 135 floats entered, and the Grand Champion trophy was award-ed to Glen Garrabrant.
The Garrabrants’ Russell Traction Engine outfit is on
display at the Morton County, KS Historial Museum in Elkhart.
The engine was donated to the museum by Janis Garrabrant
Smith and her husband , Howard C. Smith of Elkhart, KS.
T E R R I TOR I A L M AGA Z I N E 31FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015 FEBRUARY, MARCH & APRIL 2015
