Prairie Farmer Logo

Slideshow: After running its normal circuit across the country for the past five years, Horse Progress Days came back to Arthur, Ill., in July.

Austin Keating, Associate Editor, Prairie Farmer

July 11, 2019

12 Slides

Arthur, Ill., welcomed thousands for a farm show featuring almost no electrically powered equipment at the beginning of July.

While a few vendors relied on generators and batteries, the focus of Horse Progress Days was on horse-drawn implements, as well as sheep herding and various nonelectric innovations, such as furnaces that can heat a whole home without drawing power from the grid.

Horse Progress Days comes to Arthur every six years after stops in Dutch-Amish strongholds in Michigan, Pennsylvania, northern Indiana, southern Indiana and Ohio. The 22-year-old show moved to a new location this year at the Arthur Sale Barn and featured a strong turnout despite rain on the first of two days.

“People are going to remember 2019,” says coordinator Chester Detweiler, noting the dry second day was a welcome change from the first day, where rain rolled in midway through the schedule.  

The change in location gave plenty of barn space for horses as they were prepped for demonstrations.

“This is the first time it’s been held at the Arthur Sale Barn in Arthur, Ill.,” Detweiler says. “It’s worked out very well. We’ve had way more vendors, which congested everything a little more. In six years, we’ll definitely expand our vendor booth area to where we have more room for everybody.”

Alan Richard Cobb, a retired sheep production specialist from University of Illinois Extension, attended the show. He says he almost got stuck leaving the grounds on Friday due to the rain, but come Saturday, volunteers were rallied to pull attendees on tractor-drawn hayrides. They were brought from dry parking south of town to the northerly Arthur Sales Barn. Yellow-vested Amish showgoers used bikes and horse-drawn carriages, too.

“This is the third one of these I’ve been to in Arthur,” Cobb says. “I’ve seen it grow numberwise. They’re really developing business by moving it here.” He adds that the old site 5 miles away was less developed but had great horse demonstrations. “They had horses similar to the Budweiser horses. But even though those horses aren’t here this year, I had a great time.”

While wet conditions limited horse-drawn moldboard plow demonstrations, many of the scheduled events still took place, with a horse show and auction concluding Horse Progress Days.

About the Author(s)

Austin Keating

Associate Editor, Prairie Farmer

Austin Keating is the newest addition to the Farm Progress editorial team working as an associate editor for Prairie Farmer magazine. Austin was born and raised in Mattoon and graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in journalism. Following graduation in 2016, he worked as a science writer and videographer for the university’s supercomputing center. In June 2018, Austin obtained a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he was the campus correspondent for Planet Forward and a Comer scholar.

Austin is passionate about distilling agricultural science as a service for readers and creating engaging content for viewers. During his time at UI, he won two best feature story awards from the student organization JAMS — Journalism Advertising and Media Students — as well as a best news story award.

Austin lives in Charleston. He can sometimes be found at his family’s restaurant the Alamo Steakhouse and Saloon in Mattoon, or on the Embarrass River kayaking. Austin is also a 3D printing and modeling hobbyist.

Subscribe to receive top agriculture news
Be informed daily with these free e-newsletters

You May Also Like