Farming was an important and significant industry before the Industrial Revolution and with the introduction of steam‐powered engines farming was vastly improved. The arrival of the stationary and self‐propelled engines shifted the hardest farm work from man and animal power to machines. The gasoline engine was impossible before the discovery of the Pennsylvania oil fields in 1859 and gasolines were made available. The gas engine era came after World War I; by the 1930s the steam engine companies had stopped manufacturing steam engines.
The first annual Steam Rodeo was held at Charlton Park in 1958. The Gas and Steam Engine Club began construction of the Gas and Steam building in 1983 and it was finished in 1985. The white oak timber used for the construction of the building came from the trees grown in the Park. The building houses Charlton Park’s gas and steam engines as well as various historical machines on loan from club members.
