Among the features returning to the Half Century Of Progress will be a vivid display of vintage construction equipment. Featuring a crane, a team of crawler tractors, graders and other earth-moving equipment, the daily show will impress young and old alike.

Unlike anything featured at other antique farm equipment shows where the machines of crop production are in the spotlight, the working construction equipment shows here at Rantoul will illustrate each day how these machines were as vital as farm tractors to the families on our farms fifty years ago.

The crawler-type track tractors, made by International Harvester and Caterpillar, will show how the rural landscape was cleared to build vital farm-to-market roads. Allis-Chalmers graders, once used on the gravel roads of what is now a thriving Chicago suburb, will illustrate how those roads were maintained, keeping the roadway viable for the residents out in the country.

The company once known as Bucyrus-Erie built steam shovels, draglines and cranes. In addition to their road-building utility, these machines were vital for sculpting the ditches and keeping them dredged for important farm drainage. A Bucyrus crane will be at work each day of the Half Century Of Progress.

“It is easy to forget what these machines did,” commented show spokesman Max Armstrong. “They played a major role in building Rural America, helping construct farm ponds and conservation terraces and carving out farm-to-market roads and crucial drainage ditches. It is still awesome to watch them work,” added Armstrong.

The Half Century Of Progress IV is August 27 through August 30 at the Rantoul National Aviation Center.