
Annual Horse Power event held
Chippewa County Historical Society’s annual Horse Power event was held Saturday morning at Swensson Farm. The show featured a number of demonstrations such as rope making, butter making, cider pressing, corn shelling, and more. Vendors hosted booths throughout the grounds, and other activities included horse drawn wagon rides. The event is held annually to share some of the ways horses and mules were used to work the land, the Historical Society says, as agriculture in the United States was at one time dominated by the use of horses and mules following the Homestead Act in 1862. The Historical Society says horses and mules reached their peak use in 1920 with 25 million animals before the invention and availability of mechanized farm equipment caused a steady drop in the use of animals in homestead activities