As is often the case, the future arrived in the form of a sales pitch.

Over four days in late August 1916, a traveling tractor show came to Bloomington so manufacturers could sell Corn Belt farmers on these "puffing, clanging, history-writing" heralds of a better tomorrow.

Organized by an association of tractor manufacturers, the aim of the exhibition was to promote interest in "power farming." The show included an army of 2,000 "tractor men" and 500 tractors and implements, all of which arrived via railroad on 72 freight cars, seven Pullman sleepers, four baggage cars and six day coaches.

Manufacturers included the Illinois Silo & Tractor Co. of Bloomington; Aultman & Taylor; Hart-Parr; Bull; Parrett; Avery; Holt-Caterpillar (the last two from Peoria) and many others. The sales team for J.I. Case Plow Works even brought along a 4-month-old bear cub to serve as mascot for their Wallis "Cub" tractor.

Bloomington was but one in a series of stops for the tractor exhibition. Previous host cities included Dallas; Freemont, Neb.; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. After Bloomington, the show headed to Indianapolis and then Madison, Wis.

The headquarter grounds, located just east of what's now the corner of Lincoln Street and Mercer Avenue on the city's southeast side, included more than 25 tents, many of which were used by tractor manufacturers and suppliers to display their wares. The Bloomington Daily Bulletin newspaper reported that this "White City Avenue" (as it was called) also included a telegraph office, telephone booths and "a bevy of pretty girls" staffing the "bureau of information."

East of the headquarters were 14 demonstration fields or plots with a combined 510 acres. These fields gave local farmers "an opportunity to study the leading makes and types of farm tractors in actual operation under conditions as nearly similar to those which prevail on average farms," explained The Bulletin.

The Tuesday-through-Friday exhibition also included a band concert on the courthouse square and Venetian night with its "illuminated boat parade" at Miller Park.

The plowing demonstrations began Aug. 22, with 60 tractors out in the fields. The day's biggest attractions were tractors from Holt-Caterpillar and International Harvester, which "put their plots into first class seed beds" by pulling four 10-foot discs and two 12-foot harrows.

Visitors during the final day included two agents of the Russian government, who had just arrived from New York. With the European continent in the throes of the "War to End All Wars," the Russians were looking to spend $1 million on tractors that could help do things like dig ditches.

The tractor company men were pleased with the healthy turnout for the four-day show. "Conservative estimates place the total attendance at 110,000," reported The Bulletin. "Anyway there was a whale of a crowd." The demonstrations also received glowing reviews from farmers, or at least those quoted in the local press. "Just think of it," enthused Fred Blum, whose East Lawn stock farm served as the exhibition's headquarters. "These great powerful engines are built to please the farmer. Agriculture is just in its infancy."

Although the show was judged a roaring success, it would be another two decades before the internal combustion engine began its sweeping displacement of flesh-and-blood horsepower. After all, it wasn't until 1924 that International Harvester began selling the McCormick-Deering Farmall, the first successful, all-purpose tractor of the classic "tricycle" design. And it wasn't for another eight years that pneumatic tires replaced steel wheels.

In Central Illinois, the tractor didn't make significant inroads until the latter half of the 1930s. "In McLean County there was a long wait between the advent of tractors and their general use in corn farming," noted William D. Walters, Jr. in his 1997 history of local agriculture.

Of course, early tractors could plow (as evident from the 1916 exhibition), but horses were still needed for hauling and other tasks, such as pulling cultivators, seeding oats and spreading manure.

Even so, the inexorable march of the tractor continued apace. On May 1, 1939, Frank W. Bill, Pantagraph farm editor, took a 40-mile observation trip through the surrounding countryside and found "64 tractors busy in fields, plowing, disking or pulling harrows." In comparison, there were just 10 men using horses - two six-horse teams plowing, one team pulling a corn planter and others disking or raking stalks.

Eleven years later, in 1950, 85 percent of the 3,228 McLean County farmers responding to a U.S. agricultural census said they no longer used horse-drawn implements. Fifteen percent used both tractors and horses, and only 15 farmers, or less than .5 percent, used only horses.

The "power farmer" was here to stay.