Hundreds of tractors are rolling around the hamlet of Nowthen this weekend, and Harvey Greenberg is in his element.
Greenberg, 77, will be driving a 1946 green Oliver, one of more than 300 tractors -- including some wood-fired steam models -- that will rumble through the Nowthen Threshing Show grounds today through Sunday. Greenberg's sons and relatives will be driving some of his six other vintage tractors in the daily Parades of Power at 2 p.m.
The tractors will roar by a replica 1900 village, which includes a blacksmith, 100-year-old log cabin, general store and Milwaukee Road Depot.
Greenberg has been driving and selling tractors since he was a teenager in Burns Township, now Nowthen, about 10 miles northwest of Anoka. He's one of the main volunteers at the show, which also features antique tractor pulls.
About a half-mile from the show grounds, on Nowthen Boulevard by County Road 22, Greenberg Implements covers two corners. Greenberg still stops in every day to talk with customers and sell an occasional tractor. His two sons run the store that his father, Albin, opened in 1938 as an auto garage. Eight years later his older brother Don started a tractor line when Harvey was 15.
"I was really excited when we got our first Oliver," he recalled. Since then, he has collected seven vintage tractors, ranging from a 1934 Oliver to a 1956 Farmall.
"I liked to drive tractors," he said. "I was tractor crazy."
He started at age 13 in the 1940s when he earned 30 cents an hour disking peat land for a local farmer one summer.
Greenberg's store has evolved with the former Burns Township, whose nearly 4,400 residents voted to become the city of Nowthen a year ago. Selling and repairing farming equipment was Greenberg's mainstay in the 1950s and '60s. That was then.
Now, Greenberg's biggest sellers are lawn mowers, some of which are small tractors.
Dennis Berg, an area farm boy who worked for Greenberg went on to become a Burns Town Board member and is now County Board chairman.
Berg fixed tractor tires, sold parts and, after going to business school, became the bookkeeper. "You felt like part of the family," Berg said.
Harvey Greenberg's "been instrumental to making the city a better place to live," said Mayor Bill Schulz. "He's donated a lot of time and equipment. He takes care of the park, cutting the grass."
Greenberg has served more than a decade on the Burns Township planning board and the Elk River school board. Jody Hicks, who runs the threshing show, considers Greenberg and show neighbor Mike Jenne, who keeps a close eye on the 54-acre grounds, "our godfathers."
Berg said Greenberg has been a respected voice in Nowthen and an active but low-key volunteer at the Threshing Show. "Some people are somewhat invisible but always leave a positive legacy in the community," Berg said. "Harvey is one of them."
Jim Adams • 612-673-7658
