Pioneer Power Swap Meet showcases rare, historic finds

For a collector of oddities like New Ulm’s Brian Ropke, there’s no better place to find like-minded people than the Pioneer Power Swap Meet.

With a trailer loaded up with antique farming equipment ranging from a rusted blacksmith’s anvil, to hay trolleys, hog oilers and an old-fashioned drinking fountain, Ropke was right at home among the 800-or-so vendors selling peculiar finds and miscellaneous curiosites at the Pioneer Power Showgrounds over the weekend.

“If it’s an odd thing, and there’s only one of it; that’s what’s going to sell here,” said Ropke.

The New Ulm vendor has been coming to Pioneer Power for nearly his whole life. When he was young, Ropke said his father would take him to the show to buy fishing equipment together. At about 25 years old, Ropke decided he wanted to become a vendor, and he’s been hooked ever since. Ropke finds most of his oddities doing cleanouts of farms around the area.

“We go to auctions, and we do farm cleanouts and things like that,” said Ropke. “We’re always looking for people that — maybe they’re going to an old folks home or they’re moving off the farm — and we go there and try to pick up a few things.”

As a history buff, Ropke loves having the opportunity to show people pieces from farms of old. When he came to the show with his parents, Ropke said they could identify every piece of antique farming equipment up for sale and tell him how it was used and what it was used for.

Now a vendor at Pioneer Power, Ropke gets to pass on that knowledge to curious buyers.

“Everything that was older, [my mom] could tell you exactly what it did. She’s 81; she’s seen a lot of this stuff as a little girl,” said Ropke. “My mom is very mechanically inclined and knows a lot of things. Now, I know what it does, and now it’s my turn to show the younger generation.“

Ropke isn’t the only one for whom the Pioneer Power Swap Meet is a family tradition.

Michael Bagley of Bayfield, Wisconsin had been coming to sell items with his parents to Pioneer Power for over 30 years. After his father’s death, Bagley has spent the last 10 years selling a large array of items on behalf of his mother as well as international pieces of folk art he’s collected on his travels.

Manning a large booth with an impressive arrangement of vintage home decor, fishing decoys, rifles and masks collected from his journeys across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, Bagley makes Pioneer Power his first stop on the midwestern swap meet circuit. Over the course of the season, Bagley takes his collection to 40 swap meets around the country and uses the funds to finance his travels.

What makes Pioneer Power a key stop for Bagley is the wide variety of items on display.

“It has a good diversification of people,” said Bagley. “It started with tractor and steel parts and now there’s items from 46 countries in my booth, there’s everything from historic stuff to new stuff, snowmobile parts. It’s a little bit of everything.”

In recent years, Begley has been coming to the show with his friend and booth partner Don Klinkhammer of Cumberland, Wisconsin, whose collection of vintage toy trucks is not only a hit with kids but adults who remember owning those same toys when they were children. While the weather is often spotty — and with high winds and frequent downpours this year was no exception — the Pioneer Power Swap Meet has always been worth the drive.

“We always do good down here even though we get rained on and have lots of mud the last few years, but it’s been a good show,” said Klinkhammer. “It’s one of the first big shows of the year and it’s fun.”

Weather never has been much of a deterrent for the hundreds of vendors and thousands of visitors who hit up the Pioneer Power Showgrounds six miles east of Le Sueur. Hundreds of cars could be found parked for miles in all directions along the gravel roads outside the showgrounds.

“The people are wonderful here,” said Debra Calmes of River Falls Wisconsin on why she continues to make the journey out to Pioneer Power every year. For the past 10 years, Calmes has been selling some of her own belongings as well as jars of creamed honey, combed honey and raw honey on behalf of her son-in-law’s beekeeping business Wayne Honey Farm.

“The other vendors always help you put up your tent, take your tent down, park you in and people that shop here are super nice,” said Calmes.

While many of the vendors at the showgrounds were swap meet-worn veterans, the event also featured a few fresh faces like Montana Reed, owner of Kelly Reed Antiques made his second stop at Pioneer Power after a successful debut showing at last year’s event. Reed specialized in selling unique yard art pieces ranging from wind spinners to large steel models of a T-Rex..

“I did the show last year and I had about half of what you see now, so I wanted to go all out with a very large variety of items and a lot of new stuff,” said Reed.