First, to our own publication of 25 years ago. The Percheron Horse Association of America was celebrating its centennial year, so we did, too, with the cover that is reproduced here. The main feature story was a lengthy one entitled “The Matrons of Woodside.” This story dealt with the mares that had nicked so well with Laet at Woodside Farm in Ohio. In the mid-twenties and early ‘30s, the Laets had come to the same level of prominence in the Percheron breed as the Farceurs had in the Belgians. Both sires, of course, had many worthy competitors–which is a good thing. Breeds always need a number of great sires with different strengths.

1976 was a great year to be celebrating any kind of centennial in the draft horse business. The market was up, things were looking good and every breed was expanding.

Here is that Autumn 1976 cover. The photo of the Percheron mares under a big cottonwood tree was taken in 1918. I bought it from Livestock Photo at the Union Stock Yards while attending an International Livestock Show in Chicago in the early ‘60s. I didn’t even have a draft horse magazine in mind at the time. The two head shots superimposed were of the black stallion, Maverick, and the grey mare, Peggy’s Pride–both contemporary champions in 1976. Maverick was owned by Art Bast and Family, Hartford, Wisconsin, and Peggy was owned by Bob and Marilyn Robinson, Richland, Michigan.

There were new sales, new breeders and a feeling of regained confidence that had not been seen since the depression produced renaissance of the the mid-’30s. The draft horse had weathered the toughest quarter century that any species of farm animal had ever experienced. And survived.

That issue had several ads announcing the good news. On the inside front cover was one from Allan Grant, Visalia, California. He was, at that time, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation. His ad pictured a two year old roan Belgian stallion he had recently imported from Europe. I don’t think much came of it. I have never seen this animal’s name appear in a Belgian pedigree–nor any further mention of him in print. But the point is that it takes a certain level of confidence to import breeding stock. It is not an inexpensive hobby or a casual undertaking.

I’m sure the great majority of imported stallions of all breeds back in the halcyon days of importations in the late 1800s and early 1900s also got swallowed up into obscurity. Their impact was local. Just as with the flood of human immigrants. The Carnots and Farceurs were mighty few, in both species. And just plain luck plays a big role in the destiny of both horses and humans. So if you and a handful of relatives who are hooked on genealogy are the only people on earth who know how remarkable your own grandparents were–don’t feel bad. The rest of us are in the same boat–and it wasn’t the MAYFLOWER.

But it was the Shires, not the Belgians, who were the chief beneficiaries of those mid-’70s importations. Norbert Behrendt and Howard Streaker, Jr., who had formed the Maryland Shire Horse Association and Sue Wilson’s Folly Farm Shires from Pingree, Idaho, both had full page ads pushing their favorites to the front–some of them imports and offspring of imports.

Arlin Wareing from Blackfoot, Idaho, had an article on “The Problem of Importing from Europe,” in which he stated that he had personally brought over about thirty Shires from England up to that point, plus assisted several others during the last seven years. The report of the Shire Horse Association Meeting and Year was as upbeat as it gets. Membership had doubled in the last 2 ½ years and 1976 was easily going to be the strongest year in several decades. Built, to a great extent, on recent imports, here was a breed that was literally down and out a scant 15 years earlier.

Betty Groves, still new to the breed secretary business, reported that the Clydesdales had 104 head entered at their National Show at the Wisconsin State Fair; 54 at their Eastern Regional Show at the Ohio State Fair; and 35 at their Western Regional Show at Monroe, Washington. Those were big numbers for Clydes in 1976, so both the feathered breeds were doing handsomely.

Gordon Fickett, long time horse superintendent at the Minnesota State Fair, reported that about 200 head went before the judge at St. Paul. The class of twenty yearling Belgian fillies was the largest class he had seen at the Minnesota Fair in thirty years. He also reported that the “All Horse & Mule Plowing Contest,” which Minnesota took great pride in, was held in conjunction with Farm Fest ‘76 and attracted a crowd of 5,000 people to watch them plow. There were plenty of plows with over 20 walking plows, 17 sulkies, and almost that number of two bottom gangs, and more triple bottoms than he had ever seen at a plowing contest. Elmer Jones, veteran Belgian breeder from LeSueur, Minnesota, was, as was often the case, the high point plowman.

Ruth, John Lutter’s 2nd prize yearling mule at the South Dakota State Fair that appeared in his ad. John must have thought she was better than the 1st prize yearling.

Big mules were also sharing in the general prosperity. Paul Waltermyer, great little teamster and mule breeder and breaker from Pennsylvania had a full page ad announcing his upcoming sale of the hybrids at the New Holland Sales Stables near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Amish farmers were partial to mules. That Lancaster County land was too dear to be raising foals–so you could almost depend on Paul Waltermyer to be at good mule sales in the Missouri/Kansas area looking for the new tractors with long ears. Candidates for resale in Pennsylvania.

While on the subject of mules, John and Nettie Lutter, Zell, South Dakota, also has a full page ad. Best known as Belgian breeders, John also had a weakness for good mules. In the year ahead he would start his annual sale of Belgians and mules. We will run a picture of “Ruth” from John’s ad of that time.

This Belgian/Mule combination also attracted Rollin Gingerich of Parnell, Iowa. The Gingerich ad in that issue carried a picture of their winning four horse hitch at the recent Iowa State Fair, stating that all four of those horses had been sold to Owens Country Sausage, Inc., Richardson, Texas, to become part of their eight horse hitch. That, of course, put Rollin right back out on the road looking for likely prospects for his next four horse hitch. He was equally adept at finding, breaking and selling good mules.

There was a second big feature in that issue entitled “The Big Hitch”–it was a story of a runaway of a big hitch on a three bottom gang plow. The art work was pretty nifty. It was reprinted, with their blessing, from the May 1949 Farm Journal. Lynn has since reprinted it again. The surest way to assure the survival of great old stories is by the retelling. Orally some of them change in wondrous ways. Print is a little more reliable.

Like they say, records are made to be broken. So at the 1976 Iowa State Fair, Dick Sparrow and company put eight more horses into their Famous 40 Horse Hitch and took a 48 Horse Hitch out on the racetrack in front of the grandstand.

Our own horses at the time were a polyglot mixture of breeds and colors. Everett Steege, my old Belgian pal, once told me that our pasture looked like a trader’s pasture. Actually we did little buying and selling. But in the autumn of 1976 we had a bay filly foal for sale, so we pictured her with her dam, also a bay, standing 17 hands. Her dam was half Belgian, 1/4 Percheron, and 1/4 Clyde. We knew because we also owned her maternal granddam, a big buckskin mare who was 1/2 Percheron and 1/2 Clyde. The sire of the filly was Harmon Hildebrandt’s Percheron stallion. So I guess she was 5 parts Percheron, 2 parts Belgian and one part Clyde. But nobody really cared how the cocktail was thrown together. Her fate was to be a “work horse.” We sold her to a guy from Iowa Falls.

Fall sales were still fairly few and far between. The third annual Northern Indiana Colt Sale was held on October 7. We called it “the opening round in what promises to be the most extensive series of fall draft horse sales in many years.” This sale in Goshen, Indiana, was limited to foals, yearling and two-year-olds. In 1976, a total of 143 colts were sold, over 60% of them foals, at an average price of $930. The Belgian fillies were topped by a pair of half sisters consigned by Howard Sheaffer, Muir, Michigan, at $1,800 apiece. The top geldings were a pair of blonde two-year-olds from Enos Ramer, Wakarusa, Indiana at, $2,100 apiece. Blonde was very much in vogue at that time.

South Saskatchewan (getting going in the urine business in a big way) held their first annual foal sale at Alameda, Saskatchewan. One hundred seventeen foals averaged $476 with a good many of them being grades. Grades at Goshen were few to none. The top selling Belgian fillies were a pair consigned by Hubert Freitag at $2,500 and $2,100. The top selling Percheron foal, also a filly, was consigned by Lloyd Thompson, Carlyle, Saskatchewan and sold for $1,600.

The middle spread was devoted to the upcoming sale of Lazy P Belgians owned by Orval and LaVila Pierce, Oakland, Iowa. It consisted of 34 head and was scheduled for Saturday, January 29, 1977. At the time the sale was booked, Arnold Hexom had an open date on that Saturday. It seemed as good a choice as any. The occasion for the sale being that after 47 years, Orval & LaVila had rented out their land for the 1977 crop year. It was called a dispersal but Orval had no more intention of getting clear out of Belgians than he did running for Homecoming Queen. January 29 turned out to be about the coldest, stormiest, meanest day of the winter. So this sale was conducted on an absolutely wretched day. We had figured on going but never got out of our yard. It was a day of blocked roads and frozen and busted water pipes. So I remember the day, but not the sale–except for “stories.”I guess the horses got sold at somewhat of a disadvantage. There is no sale report in the next issue as such. But I do recall that day rather clearly.

The six mule team that Paul Waltermyer drove on the Bicentennial Wagon Train from Richmond, Virginia, through Washington, D.C. to the great rendezvous at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Note Paul astride the near side wheeler and driving with a single line. He drove them that way the whole route. The mules and wagon were all consigned to his mule sale at New Holland on January 21, 1977.

People in the fireworks business probably had the best third quarter report ever as the country celebrated the 200th year of our nationhood. Excess in celebrating the glorious 4th of July was the rule from coast to coast. Such as: A cherry pie sixty square feet big was baked (somehow) in a place called George in the state from Washington. I suppose this was a tribute to our first president, George Washington, who admitted to cutting down the cherry tree. On the other side of the continent, in New York City, fifteen tall sailing ships and a couple hundred smaller ones sailed up the Hudson River. In between, I’m sure you could come up with fifty other examples of such oddities. And lots of fireworks.

A couple of weeks later the Democratic Party nominated Jimmy Carter, a former naval officer (graduate of Annapolis) and a former governor of the state of Georgia, as their standard bearer in the upcoming presidential election. He was the first major party nominee for president in 128 years from the states of the old confederacy. The south had risen again. Carter chose Fritz Mondale, senator from Minnesota as his running mate.

The 1976 Summer Olympics were held in Montreal. The U.S. did not do so well. Many of the top athletes from Africa were absent as 22 countries from the continent boycotted the proceedings. No country dominated the mens’ events but the East German women were almost invincible.

In August, the Republicans met. President Ford won the nomination in a close ballot, turning back the bid by Ronald Reagan by 1187 votes to Reagan’s 1070. Then Ford chose Senator Bob Dole from Kansas as his running mate. I can still see Dole strolling around the Iowa State Fairgrounds shaking outstretched hands everywhere about a week after the convention.

Mid-summer 1976 was also the time frame of the mysterious Legionnaire’s Disease which struck down a bunch of people attending the Pennsylvania State American Legion Convention. It broke out over the fabulous 4th in Philadelphia, of course, and by late August had claimed 28 lives and left a lot of others ill. This was no typical convention hangover.

The Lockheed Company was in a mess of embarrassment, guilty or not. In Japan, a former prime minster was indicted on charges of accepting bribes totalling over a million and a half dollars to arrange purchase of Lockheed aircraft for Japan’s largest airline. And in the Netherlands, Prince Bernhard resigned his post in the government for the same reason, but for considerably less money –an alleged $162,000 in his case. The Prince denied it. But the evidence was fairly strong that greasing palms was a part of doing business at Lockheed. Maybe everybody was lying. Who knows? What else is new?

You thought the Korean War was over? Well, large scale it was, but on August 19 a group of North Korean soldiers killed two Americans and wounded four more Americans and five South Koreans. The weapons were hardly space age. They were axes and metal spikes. This was, of course, in the demilitarized zone. Naturally, North Korea claimed their boys were attacked. Hatred dies slowly.

And finally, in September Mao Tse-tung, who led the Communists in their long fight with Chiang Kai-shek, died at 82 years of age. Eulogized endlessly in China, he had certainly left his mark on the twentieth century.

Here in the United States, Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was promoting “fence row to fence row” planting and promising a sort of golden age for America’s farmers. It would be agricultural exports that would feed a hungry world and fuel the American economy forever and ever, amen. He, too, left his mark on the twentieth century.

In other words, things were kind of normal 25 years ago. And the draft horse business was doing very well.