The typical farm had a house, barn, and several other buildings for chickens, hogs and grain storage. Several horses and cows are also seen as well as rows of corn starting to grow in the field.
A team of three horses is pulling a binder to cut the grain and puts it in individual bundles. A man is riding the open binder The second man is gathering the bundles and placing them in shocks to be later thrashed.
The John Kangas log house shown here was built by Hanse Annala about 1898. There are a rake and several scythes hanging on the wall, with a washtub used for doing laundry on the far left of the photo. Originally the house had a birch bark roof. It was donated to the Finnish American Memorial Foundation of Esko - now the Esko Historical Society - and land was obtained for its current placement as a building of the museum in 1965. The back of the postcard has handwriting saying, "built by Hansi Annala John Kangas home about 1898 Birch Bark Roof."
Postcard depicting the Minnesota State Fair's Newspaper Building at night. Portions of the building are tinted pink and blue to highlight its lights. Reverse has a message written in Dutch, which was sent to "Miss H. v. d. Molen" in Bussum, Netherlands.
A man is standing on the back of the steam engine watching and operating the controls to make sure the steam pressure will be high enough to operate the threshing machine, but not so high as to blow up the boiler.
A view of the Sylvan Border Farm in Underwood. A barn, windmill and house are in the background surrounded by trees; and a harvested field covered in snow is in the foreground.
The threshing machine is powered by a belt coming from the steam engine. One man is tossing the shocks of grain into the threshing machine. The straw is blown into one pile while the grain is being collected in a wagon.
Two men are top of the pile of grain bundles pitching them into the threshing machine. The steam engine is providing power to the threshing machine by the belt.