Steam Engine Retrieved From River

Steam Engine Retrieved From River AG WORLD Ag World They re having fun in Clay Center Kansas And it s all because Corey Stewart retrieved an old steam engine from a river bed where it had been buried for 70 years     Pulling the steam engine out was half the fun Speculation about how it got in there in the first place is the other half We ll get to that     First the feat While everyone knew the steam engine was there and there was always talk that someone needed to go in there some time and pull the machine out it remained for Corey Stewart co-owner of a Clay Center welding shop to do the job     On Nov 26 2005 Corey his father and a crew of buddies with long handled shovels dug down and got a chain around the engine Then using a combination of a Cat track hoe and a Cat tractor they lugged the old engine to the surface This after breaking five chains     So how did the steam engine get into this predicament in the first place?     Old timer Wilford Abels 87 lifelong resident of Clay Center knows this much: The engine was owned by a man named Eugene Baldwin and was used primarily as a threshing engine He remembers the engine sinking     For more information Jim Unruh Clay Center who took photos of the retrieval operation referred me to Cathy Haney curator of the Clay County Museum     Now Cathy wasn t even born when the accident happened She says that what she knows is what can be gleaned from the newspapers     Apparently the engine was being used to build a bridge over the Republican River There is disagreement over whether it was being used on the pile driver or driving a riveting machine There is also disagreement over which of two floods in 1935 pushed the engine and most of the bridge into the river     Cathy says there is a story in the June 1 1935 Clay Center Dispatch which says that a dam had broken on the Republican River in Franklin Neb and a wall of water 6 8 or 12 feet high was headed downriver     As to the actual retrieval Corey Stewart who collects antique tractors and a friend Ken Shivers first had to get permission from the Kansas Department of Transportation to dig around the bridge     The Wichita Eagle reported that the 12-ton engine was down 25 ft in the river muck The engine was on its side covered with some of the slickest mud Stewart says he has ever seen     A Clay County fire engine sprayed 2 500 gal of water on the steamer to clean it off Stewart got enough mud out of the wheels to allow them to turn Then he went on to tow the steamer to his shop Stewart says the engine is in surprisingly good shape and that he hopes to get it going again

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