This photo of a threshing operation was taken around 1915. The steam powered tractor on the right powered the thresher on the left with a long belt attached to a pulley. The workers fed the oat or wheat stacks into the thresher hopper which separated the grain from the chaff. The grain was fed into horse drawn wagons. Local farmers would hire a threshing team that had the steam engine and threshing machine. These threshing crews would go from farm to farm. One of the crews was run by Frank Schlosser of Minonk. Photo provided by John Kettwich.