Families cross Mackinac Bridge with antique tractors
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Del and Jan Bodart from Pulaski, Wisconsin, joined fourteen family members and friends to drive their collection of ten International Harvester tractors across Michigan’s Mackinac Bridge.
The couple has made this annual journey eight times, continuing a tradition that began with their dairy farm and now extends to grain farming. Their son, Mike Bodart, and his brothers maintain the family’s passion for antique tractors, passing it on to a third generation who helped with the trip.
Pete Flesch of Soldiers Grove, Wisconsin, also made the trip, crossing the bridge for the first time on his 1957 Allis-Chalmers tractor, the same year as both the bridge’s opening and his own birth. Flesch, a third-generation farmer, continues to use the tractor for work on his farm after restoring it five years ago.
Gale Gast from Boyceville, Wisconsin, participated in his fifth Mackinac Bridge tractor parade, bringing three tractors and a rare 1950s-era pickle picker built by a local manufacturer. The Bodart and Flesch families value the event as a way to connect with history, heritage, and fellow tractor enthusiasts.
