International Convention and Old Equipment Exposition |
Alex Taylor built this amazing diorama entirely of Legos. It features an operating Manitowoc 6400 dragline, a Northwest 180-D shovel and two haulers. Even the coal, overburden and spoil are Legos!
How many equipment manufacturers built cars? This is an International Harvester Auto-Buggy, offered between 1907 and 1912.
The Museum’s mid 1960s Allis-Chalmers 260 motor scraper loads with assistance from National Director Scott Matheney’s 1956 LeTourneau-Westinghouse C Tournadozer.
Lakeside Sand & Gravel’s 1926 P & H 206 clamshell crane loads their 1947 White WB dump truck. The scene recreates a photo taken of Lakeside operations in April, 1956 .
A penny for your thoughts, young man! HCEA shows aren't just for equipment enthusiasts. We expose kids of all ages to the marvels of antique machinery, towards inspiring them to construction careers.
A 1980 White Road Commander 2 truck tractor, owned by Robert and Carol Dahs.
The Huber name was well-known for rollers, graders and maintainers, but it had its roots in agricultural equipment and tractors. This is a 1932 40-62 owned by John Androvich.
Dirt moving in the late 1960s is recreated by one of the Museum’s Cat 631Bs and its 435 pull scraper, and National Director Scott Matheney’s 1956 LeTourneau-Westinghouse C Tournadozer.
The Museum's crushing spread at work. A Russell & Company 16 horsepower traction engine owned by Jim Lashaway powers the 1930s gyratory crusher.
The Museum’s scraper spread was a big attraction again. The 1951 Cat D7 and 1957 Cat 435 scraper help give the 631B water wagon something to do, as the 1965 D9G, nicknamed Big Push, looks on.
This year’s show featured flagraising in grand fashion, with the Museum’s 1966 American 4450 truck crane appropriately doing the honors.
The Museum’s freshly restored 1942 Manitowoc 3500 dragline takes a break.
You there, online! What will you bid? Auctioneer Jason Whalen graciously donated his services
to cry bids at the banquet auction, as Jay Wack and President Earl Fitzgerald work the crowd.
So why do we do all this? The delight on this boy’s face tells the story as owner J. R. Laborie gives him a ride on his 1970 Link-Belt HC-200 Hydrascoop. Note if you will the Link-Belt red sweatshirt!
Rain early Sunday morning made more cleanup necessary. Ron Cannizzo mans the Museum’s 1935 Diesel
Fifty as it draws the Museum’s 1929 Adams Leaning Wheel No. 7 grader through the slop.
Museum volunteer Brent Myers could be seen tooling about the grounds in his 1957 BMW Isetta 300. As suggested by the handle, the front is the door!
Our shows draw various vintage military vehicles, including this restored 1918 Holt 5-Ton Armored crawler tractor shown by Howard Bowers.
This 1947 Detroit Tractor Corporation 44-16 compact wheel loader, owned by the Laborie Family, is pulling Doug Linner’s 1893 Lassig pull grader.
Cleveland Trencher Company is famous for its wheel trenchers. Much less known is the CT-4 utility trencher, designed to compete with far more numerous machines from Davis, Ditch-Witch and Vermeer.
Koehring, Lorain and Lima produced excavators that in essence put a front-end loader’s operating principles on a turntable. This is Lorain’s TL25 telescopic-boom Scoop Shovel, built in 1956.
Robert Dahs’ 1955 Seaman-Gunnison Duopactor can compact using either the smooth drum as shown here, or the row of smooth pneumatic tires, or both. It can also double as a dump truck!
Former Marine Jim Carter went all in for the show, demonstrating his 1972 Case M4150 military loader with Drott bucket, in full uniform! Thanks for your service, Jim, and to all of our veterans!
The Museum’s Allis-Chalmers 260 motor scraper arrived just in time for the show. The Kon-Tork logo for the torque-proportioning differential dates it to the 1960s.
This Allis-Chalmers HD6's right crawler left its sprocket and idler. In a scene from older days, supervisorial staff drove out to the failure in a project Jeep, in this case Dean Wack’s 1946 model.
The drone zeroes in on the new exhibit area, with the crusher operation in the center. Excluding cars, trucks, trailers and golf carts, all but four of these machines belong to the Museum.
Museum Volunteer Charlie Scherer and the Museum’s 1964 Cat 12-E motor grader shift muck off the working area Thursday afternoon.
This is what the grounds looked like Thursday morning. Much work was done to make the place ready for Friday morning!
This drone view shows the grounds from the Museum building west. The area at right center, beyond the pond and treeline, was recently surfaced with donated grindings.
One can almost imagine International Harvester and Allis-Chalmers engineers taking notes as a 1950 TD24 and 1952 HD20 go neck and neck in the dirt. Or are they seeing the future in the 1974 D9G?
Along with over two hundred antique crawler and wheel tractors, show host Kurt Kocher’s collection includes many other machines, some fairly recent like this 1974 Cat D9G.
Here’s a fine down-on shot of Dennis and Sue Johnson’s International Harvester TD24. It dates to 1950, the year after the TD24 was reintroduced following failure and recall of the original version.
This 1957 Bantam C35, owned by the Heartland Chapter, has Bantam called its “all-vision” cab. It was standard on the CR35 self-propelled version, but is undocumented on the crawler or truck models.
This is Brad and Kathy Smith’s Hercules Dirt Scoop built by Insley Manufacturing Company – the same Insley that also built concrete equipment and, later, cable and hydraulic excavators and cranes.
The show featured a pair of Clark 290-M military surplus tractors with Euclid scrapers, owned by Dane Barclay. This tractor was built in 1967 and has the original Euclid 21SH pan.
Truck-drawn bottom dumps make for speed in over-the road hauling, dumping and windrowing. This 1972 I-H 210D tractor is owned by Levi Martens, and John Martens owns the 1956 Fruehauf trailer.
This early Maney scraper, built by Baker Manufacturing Co., is representative of early tractor-drawn scrapers. Mike and Sue Waggoner own the scraper, and an unregistered I-H TD6 provides the power.
Dave Geis demonstrates his restored 1962 P & H S-20 Stik-Clam. The Stik-Clam could use its two cubic foot clam bucket 11 feet below or above the surface, and it could dig along walls.
Dave Jowett showed this steam tandem roller built by The Iroquois Iron Works of Buffalo, New York.
The show was adjacent to a wind farm, and while the turbines didn’t help cool anything they set up numerous anachronisms with vintage machinery like this Cat side-seat RD6 and Trailer Patrol grader.
The HCEA’s annual International Convention and Old Equipment Exposition is a gathering of antique construction machinery, trucks and related equipment for the general public. The show features live demonstrations of these machines, with technology spanning from the late 1800s to the mid to late 1900s. Exhibitors bring equipment from hundreds of miles away to our shows, and attendees come from around the world.
Our next show will be at the National Construction Equipment Museum in Bowling Green, Ohio, Thursday through Saturday, September 18-20, 2025! Stay tuned for updates!
Click to view image galleries from past shows!