Members of the Lake Itasca Region Pioneer Farmers (LIRPF) have begun sweeping out the cobwebs and tuning up the engines in preparation for their 41st Annual Show.
Keith Davis, a member of the LIRPF for nearly 20 years, hosted a tour of the show grounds last Saturday generating interest among the tour group with the promise of a spectacular show come August.
The grounds are also open for a free public tour on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. until August.
"The work that goes on here usually goes on during the weekends," Davis explained. "And this time of year there is a lot of activity."
Incorporated in 1976, the LIRPF moved to their current location in 1990, which is 25 acres adjacent to the north side of Itasca State Park.
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The show grounds are within a portion of the park. They consist of over 30 buildings that have been built by the show itself and by several individual families to put their beloved old fashioned trinkets on display.
These buildings, according to Davis, have been built with the lumber that has come through the saw mill, which is also on the grounds and still operational.
Some of the older buildings have been moved in from various places throughout the county, such as an old church and schoolhouse, which was built in the 1890s.
The tours of the show grounds, which is meant to look like a village, are intended to show visitors to Itasca that there were people in the area when the park was established.
The walls in the logging museum are lined with photographs that depict the vast amount of logging that occurred in the area around that time.
"The purpose is to show what used to be," Davis said.
The buildings house a great variety of antique objects such as tractors, trucks, steam engines, model trains and so much more.
The show takes place the third weekend in August and Davis estimates nearly 3,000 people attend the show each year to watch the nearly 200 members of LIRPF put their collectables on display.
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There are so many things to see and do at the show grounds, and among some of the scheduled events are live music, parades, lumber sawing, log handling, antique engines and machinery in operation and grain threshing.
Attendees will get to tour a 100-year old rural schoolhouse, engine sheds, a blacksmith shop, Sawmill Hill, North Itasca Railroad as well as the Osage Baptist Church built in 1887, a log house built in 1902, and so much more.
The 41st Annual show is scheduled for Aug. 19-21 at the Lake Itasca Region Pioneer Farmers show grounds north of Itasca State Park.
For more information on the show visit
