Octagon Barn to draw visitors

The largest live steam engine show since the 1960s in Michigan’s Thumb! So many vintage toys and dolls that a HUGE tent has been ordered! That’s what you’ll see when visiting the 15th annual Fall Family Days event at the Thumb Octagon Barn in Gagetown!

Spin back in time as the eight-sided barn and surrounding site serve as the staging grounds for the 15th annual Thumb Octagon Barn’s Fall Family Days, re-creating the early 1900s rural life.

The event begins at 4 PM Friday, September 10th with a fish supper and sing a long in the Barn; all activities/events will be open Saturday, September 11th and Sunday, September 12th from 8 AM to 5 PM.

The Steam Power theme has attracted 11 steam engines for the weekend! There will be both steam traction engines as well as vertical stationary steam engines. Steam engines will be operating some of the equipment on site at the sawmill, plus a stationary threshing machine, and an electrical generator. Steam Power has definitely garnered a lot of attention!

The theme, Vintage Toys & Dolls, has also captivated tremendous interest! There will be running old model trains set up on a huge tracked set-up with many different buildings and levels.

People will be displaying their collections of Vintage Toys & Dolls with lots of old tractors, dollhouses, barns, and a variety of old toys, plus many beautiful vintage dolls.

Bob Hirn, Cass City, and Martin Kubacki, Ubly, are co-chairs of the 15th Annual Fall Family Days and have added many new things to this event.

New buildings built/rebuilt on the site this year are the Grain Elevator and Sugar Shack; this is the beginning of the Village area east of the creek near the One Room Country School.

The Grain Elevator has working legs, floor scale, and other granary equipment in operation running off line shafts; also displays of granary equipment and memorabilia from grain elevators in the Thumb area.

In the Sugar Shack the evaporator will be working, making sorghum syrup, some of which will be for sale. A new demonstration this year is the dowelling machine that was donated in 2006 by John Herzog, Pigeon. It has taken some time to get it in working order plus the installation a line shaft on the west side of the sawmill building to have it operational. Wooden dowels will be made, the FFD stamp (Fall Family Days) will be stamped on them, and available to visitors.

Also new this year will be half hour presentations in the One Room County School, twice each day, put on by children/teachers in period appropriate dress depicting the routines students went through during those days. The children will also be operating an oldstyle lemonade stand out by the school. This being the 100th Year Anniversary of the Boy Scouts, they will be on site with a set up near the Children’s Activity area on Saturday only. They will have hands-on projects for children and a rock-climbing wall. New this year will be the Scottish American Society of Michigan performing each day at 1:30 p.m. in their Scottish attire playing their bagpipes. The original builders of the Barn and house, John and George Munro’s father emigrated from Scotland in 1848 to Ontario, Canada; the brothers moved to the Thumb in the late 1800s. Their granddaughters are active in the Scottish American Society.

After the Fish Supper on Friday, folks are invited to gather in the Barn for some old-time music provided by the Eastern Michigan Music Makers. Arlen Bannik, Bad Axe, musician organizer, encourages those interested to bring their own instruments and join in the fun, plus they will host a good old-fashioned Barn Dance. Throughout both Saturday and Sunday, The Eastern Michigan Music Makers will gather under the black walnut trees in front of the Barn for a continuous concert and at 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, there will be a Gospel Sing in that area.

The 1922 extravagant 15- room house with eight bedrooms will be open. In the Barn will be many live farm animals to pet, a dairy display depicting old and new practices of getting and storing the milk, plus a live bee display. Bygone era equipment will be prominently featured all around the 70-foot tall Thumb Octagon Barn site.

The One Room Country School, an actual country school moved to the site several years back, will be open to see what education looked like in the early 1900s.