Manufactured by International Harvester, this cultivator could easily be a turn of the century implement. It was obviously designed to be horse drawn as it has an operator's seat and leading wheels, attached to the main frame by a heavy wooden tongue.
About nine feet in width, even with the narrow shovels presently mounted it would be a load for a four horse team in anything but light or sandy soil. An interesting feature is that, given the weight of the shovels, shanks and attendant iron, the cultivator is equipped with a ground driven method of raising the shovels. A push on the long lever by the operator's seat lowers them with a clunk while another push raises them, more slowly than they went down.
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.