Relatively complete, not counting belts (which are never in place on a display thresher anyway), this thresher wouldn't show me a name plate or a decal or even a logo to tell what brand it is. A bit of orange paint here and there hints that this could be a Case. Case was the first to market an all steel thresher, in 1904.
It is somewhat unusual in that the wooden return elevator and the grain elevator are both on the right side.
It's equipped with a
Hart Grain Weigher which allows for easy filling of all grain sacks to the same weight and a "Farmer's Friend" stacker on the rear. The Hart decal on one side of the thresher is still readable, if only barely. Though not seriously old, this is a fairly old one, though, possibly 1910-1920.
Fort Steele is a large, mostly open air museum of local history, with both restored and reconstructed buildings, on the site of the original Fort Steele.
Fort Steele now has over 60 heritage buildings, some recreations, most restorations, antique tractors and farm equipment, a restored water wheel from one of the local mines, antique vehicles, and just antiquities of all manner. Fort Steele is a complete community, with a school, church, houses, drug store, black smith, livery stable, hotel, pool hall, police detachment, telegraph, dry goods store, clothing store, gardens, a farm, and more.
The town is actually a resurrection of the original Fort Steele which, after the mining booms of 1865 and 1892, fell on hard times. When the railway bypassed the town in favour of Cranbrook, a few miles to the south, it spelled the death knell for the town which was eventually deserted and fell into disrepair. In the late 1950s local citizens wished to protect the old town and restore it as a historic site and museum. In 1961 the government declared Fort Steele an historic park with a mandate “to preserve, present, and manage for public benefit the historic settlement of Fort Steele . . .”. Today Fort Steele is an important landmark in southeast British Columbia, drawing 80,000 visitors annually.