While Formula 1, NTT IndyCar and NASCAR all held races over the weekend, a much slower form of motorsports was being held in Ethel — tractor pulls — during the fourth annual Olsen Field Progress Days.
Along with local farmers bringing out their prized tractors to see who could pull the sled the furthest, a variety of old steam and hit-and-miss engines, threshing machines and other vintage harvesting equipment were on display, joined by a vendor market, horse-drawn carriage and wagon rides and more.
The horses weren’t the only animals at Progress Days this year, though, as Roy resident Jo Gruessing also brought her pet zebra-donkey hybrid, also known as a “zonkey” or “zedonk,” named Doobie, after The Doobie Brothers band. And while Doobie does have a strikingly-striped fur coat thanks to his zebra genes, he certainly takes his donkey side when it comes to his disposition.
“I think someone gave him to us. My husband showed up with him one day. It happens,” Gruessing said. “We had zebras before, and we ended up selling those, and then we came across him, and he’s just been a part of our family. He loves people. You can take him to events and he’s very calm. He likes to hang out with other horses that are friendly to him. So the other little guy going around with the buggy, that’s his buddy in the field.”
This might not be the only time Doobie visits Ethel, either, as Gruessing and her family are in talks with property owner Ken Olsen about hosting their own horse-riding events.
“We’re trying to do our own event where we can do more horse things, like horse pulling, instead of tractor pulling,” Gruessing added.
The hope is to have the horse event scheduled sometime during August 2027.
Olsen himself was happy with how this year’s Progress Days went, as he saw an increase in tractor pull participants along with more vintage engine displays and even a North American Prospectors Association booth where attendees could pan for gold.
While last year saw just over 40 register to participate in tractor pulls, this year saw 59 competing Saturday and 51 on Sunday according to members of the Cowlitz River Two-Cylinder Club, which runs the tractor pull competition. The horses were also a hit, Olsen added.
“The horse rides are something that we’ve never done before, and they were very popular,” Olsen said. “... And we had more engine people here than we’ve ever had before. And the threshing machine, this is the first year we’ve ever had grain go through it. We didn’t have the grain timing down right, but we got it now.”
The threshing machine was powered by a tractor more than a century old — Woodland resident Fred Schulz’s 1906 Case steam-powered tractor — which he maintains and runs along with his son-in-law Ken Clark.
Mossyrock resident Jim Harry also once again brought his 1928 Rumely Model X oil-pull tractor to Progress Days. He even gave The Chronicle the opportunity to take the 98-year-old tractor for a drive.
According to Harry, his old Rumely is one of only several thousand oil-pull machines made by the company still in existence, and he did not know how many of those surviving tractors were still running like his. Rumely first began selling production tractors from 1910 until the early 1930s when the company was purchased and refocused on producing threshing and harvesting machines, and once World War II started, any machinery not actively in use or needed on farmers fields was taken for scrap metal for the war effort.
“The survivors, they were hidden in barns and behind chicken coops. Because it was a federal law. They had to be turned in if they weren’t being used,” Harry said.
Harry’s own Rumely survived being scrapped during WWII as its original owner was actually a Canadian farmer.
“Eventually, it made its way down to Washington, and I bought it from a collector here in Washington state. It hid across the border at the right time,” Harry added.
Both Olsen and the Cowlitz River Two-Cylinder Club, which organizes and holds the tractor pulls, are planning on returning for the fifth annual Olsen Field Progress Days in 2027.
Progress Days was started by Olsen along with members of the Cowlitz River Two-Cylinder Club, who wanted to keep this kind of event going in the region after the longstanding Cowlitz Prairie Grange Threshing Bee ended just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of the ABATE Lewis County chapter also help organize this event.
First held in 1964, the Threshing Bee ended after the property owners of the location where it used to be held did not renew the lease with the Cowlitz Prairie Grange for the land. Like Progress Days, the Threshing Bee featured tractor pull competitions and vintage engines and farming equipment on display and demonstration.
