Great Oregon Steam-Up puts focus on vintage firefighting

Jim Kelsey, of Gervais, uses a hammer to shape a shoehorn while forge welding in the blacksmith shop at Powerland Heritage Park (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)

In the 1950s, a group of local farmers felt nostalgic. 

Before World War II, they tended the land with wheat thrashers and steam engines, but as technology improved, their tools fell out of use and things started to change. 

Channeling their nostalgia into action, farmers pulled their old equipment out…