Photo by Mike Lamb Ron Boje stands next to his 1949 Willys Overland delivery van at the Ruthton Fourth of July celebration Saturday.

RUTHTON — While Kayla Daniels filled the air with her music at the city park, hundreds of people lined up to purchase a hot dog or burger meal during the city’s annual Fourth of July celebration.

“Between the hot dogs and the burgers we feed about 700 people,” said Brenda Dagel with the Buffalo Ridge Civic Organization.

She said the organization only has seven members but get volunteers to help out with the Fourth feed.

“We have or system down,” she said.

Classic vehicles also lined up along a nearby street.

Milt Voss of Ruthton and Peggy Meyer of Marshall sat on lawn chairs eating lunch under a large shady tree next to Voss’ 1957 Chevrolet 150 series.

“This is what you call a business coup because it doesn’t have a backs seat. The windows don’t roll down. The car is made for salesmen,” Voss said.

He said the cars were also built with no radios and no carpeting on the floor. Voss also said the vehicles were a favorite on the NASCAR racing circuit.

Just a couple vehicles down the street, Ron Boje sat in his lawn chair across from his rat rod.

“It’s a 1949 Willys Overland delivery van,. All the Willys had glass on the sides, but the delivery vans, they never had glass. This came from a gentleman back in South Dakota back in the day,” Boje said. “A friend of mind had it. He passed away. He bought it and he was going to make into a rat rod and it didn’t work out and I bought it. In one winter I had it done and I could drive it the next summer. Put in about 3,000 hours in that thing.”

Boje added a unique feature under the hood. He installed an empty whiskey bottle as the overflow container.

“Everybody loves my whiskey bottle. I decided I didn’t want a plastic thing like they are,” he said. “I went down at the bar in the dumpster. Found a whiskey bottle and it works just fine.”