YOU WANT US TO RESTORE WHAT?!!!!

 

 

Sometimes, you get calls that you’d rather not answered.

 

“I gots a trailer out in Traskwood with a bunch o’ broken winder glass, cain yew fix it?”

I’m sure someone can, but we are a Historic Restoration Company.

At least, that’s what I have to occasionally tell people with problems like that.

 

Then someone calls an architect we know, and he drops a 1923 Church in our laps. Designed by the preeminent historic architect in Arkansas, we put a plan together, built a crew, and moved to the tiny burg of DeWitt for two weeks, doing the impossible. We rescued a church from total destruction when one of its two 45-foot bridge trusses failed.

That church now stands proud and likely will for many years.

 

Then there’s the Stranger Things. I do not mean a television show.

 

I’ve said it before; My Magic is Strong.

But sometimes it helps to have someone else along, sorcerer or not.

While working as a Project Manager for CM Construction of Little Rock, Arkansas in the late 2000oughts, I was introduced to our new office manager Kelly. Kelly, a professional accountant, knew little of Restoration or our business, but he dove in, made things tighter, and righted a ship we thought was already pretty right. 

During this time, I expanded the Little Rock company statewide, as our first out-of-town jobs went swimmingly. One of my promotional tactics was to travel to towns being visited by the State Main Street Program, an organization that offers advice, programs, and help in the restorations of small town commercial districts. Some programs were free, some cost a bit, and others cost more. The towns’ movers and shakers would attend the pitches, and some would spend a few dollars to get more locals or tourists into the town centers, hopefully to add to the towns’ coffers.

I would attend these meetings to see if the townsfolk were really interested in improving their city centers or not. We’d talk up the Main Street program, shake hands, introduce ourselves, and then talk up our restoration services. 

It wasn’t easy to get rural towns to bite; their downtowns are often underdeveloped, many with beautiful older buildings sitting vacant for years. Building owners were understandably loath to invest in what they often considered a useless effort; times are always tough in farm country. But sometimes, just sometimes, a few would rally together and improvements would be made. Then the other building owners would invest, and what was nearly a ghost town would begin to resemble what it was in the past, with commerce bustling, money spent, businesses growing, and civic improvements made.

So it was one weekday when Kelly and I rode the two-laner to Warren, a southern Arkansas town famous for its Pink Tomatoes.

They truly are wonderful, and if you happen to be in Arkansas when the Pink Tomato Festival is taking place, don’t miss it. I’m not kidding.

As often happens, the Movers and Shakers were counting their pennies and didn’t bite to hire Main Street to do any seminars, programs, or other Main Street offerings to revitalize Warren’s downtown. And looking from their points of view, who could blame them (other than me)? Again, farming communities have it hard enough, and they simply didn’t see the investment returning enough to take the chance.

They not know.

But they were all very nice, and when the meeting began to break up, Kelly and I were approached by the Head of the Chamber of Commerce.

“So you guys do Historic Restoration?” he asked. I nodded, noting the CM color brochure in his hand. “Do you know anything about metal?” Again, I nodded. This might get interesting.

“What have you got” I smiled, seeing he held his cards very close.

“You guys meet me at the Chamber in an hour, and I’ll show you.”

The meeting broke up and Kelly and I went to the local café to get lunch and to wonder about this guy’s mysterious metal problem. 

He wasn’t back in the office after lunch, so we walked around town and I described the buildings’ charms and problems to Kelly, who was just learning about restoration. There were plenty of fine, strong two-story brick storefronts with huge spaces above, but the question always is “How do you fill these spaces and make them economically viable?”

All while not only retaining their historic charm, but using that charm to the town’s advantage.

It's a challenge, all right. And the local farmers have plenty of those.

But we had a hard time keeping our minds on the town and its future, as Arkansas was experiencing one of the hottest summers ever recorded. Nearly every day, the Arkansas River Valley towns of Russellville, Clarksville, and Fort Smith recorded temperatures in the upper 100teens.

“Lookit that,” I pointed sweatily, wiping my brow with a red bandana.

“Oh my God,” Kelly said, wiling his own brow with a handkerchief. “Can that really be right?”

The bank scroll-message read 117 degrees, and I believed it.

“We gotta get out of this heat,” I offered. “Let’s go wait at the Chamber.”

But the Chamber Head was already there, and he still wouldn’t tell us what he wanted us to restore, other than it was metal.

“Follow me out to the park and I’ll show you.”

A half mile later, we exited our vehicles into the July heat and marveled at the prettiest little park we’d seen in some time. A creek lined with trees was surrounded by playscapes, tables, swings and slides. And we didn’t see the Most Important Part of the Park until it was pointed out to us.

“Is that….?” I stumbled with my words as we approached the thing.

“Yep,” Mr. Chamber smiled. “A local lumber company donated it years ago. I’m not sure how long it’s been here, but even I remember playing on it.”

NOW I understood; he wanted the shock value to reflect on our faces. And I saw that this particular item needed restoration pretty badly.

 

“The kids still crawl all over it and play like they’re driving it, just like I did,” he said, though I couldn’t believe it had been there that long. We walked up to it, climbed in the cab, and talked about what he wanted done. The paint was failing, there were rust holes, and many parts of the engine and oil tender were getting too dangerous for the kids to crawl around. I asked how extensive he wanted the restoration to be.

“You’re not wanting it to run, are you?” I smiled.

“Not at this time,” he smiled back.

 Telling him I needed to take some pictures, I climbed down and began my photographic foray, thinking ‘What do I know from locomotives?’

 I knew I’d have some studying to do. So I took a LOT of pictures.

Rust holes in the oil tender, plus a little local graffiti.

Hard to carve a heart on metal.

More holes in the oil tender. The tender is the car directly behind the engine that carries the fuel. In this case, it was "oil." A petroleum product not unlike diesel or kerosene, but thicker.

Some places had rust that would be difficult to reach.

Some places had rust that had gathered in piles. These piles would have to be dragged out and vacuumed with a thin hose to reach the tight space.

Some pipes were missing, but still allowed water to infiltrate.

Locomotives are made of cast iron. Cast iron can stand heat that steel and wrought iron cannot, and since they are literally boilers that move, there is a lot of heat.

Cast iron also rusts amazingly quickly, due to its high carbon content. All the more reason to patch the holes after treating them with a rust preventative. And that right quickly.

Handmade rivets, set by two workers. One worker sets the rivet while it is practically molten (okay, it's elastic, but just try to grab one with your hands and you'll think they're molten too)) while the other worker bangs it with a heavy hammer, flattening the other side. The frame of the Empire State Building was built the same way, as were the Queens Mary and Elizabeth. Ships, you know, in the Queen's service. By name, anyway.

Some sort of railing or pipe base, by my best guess. A better look at the rivets.

We used to MAKE things in this country. Heavy, moving things made of iron and steel.

Now we make watery decisions.

We need more craftsmen and fewer middle managers.

Kelly trying to shade himself from my golden being!

Or maybe it was the sun. A hot sun, too, as the temps reached 117 degrees that day.

What a perfect day for me to clamber about on a giant hunk of black steel!

I burned my hands, my shins, and the bottoms of my shoes. I was also dressed for a meeting, not a restoration investigation. Luckily I didn't ruin or stain my Columbia Giant White shirt or khaki shorts.

The floor of the cab, including the doors to the firebox, some control levers and wooden benches.

Not sure what this contraption is.. I'll get back to you on that after I study a bit more.

More details of steel connectors, but I like the rivets best.

Steam dome; it regulates the steam so the engine doesn't explode 

This joint will need some sealing after we rustproof it.

 Oh, we already did. All that was done ten years ago.

More rivets, more joints to be sealed. All this is at the base of the smokestack, in case you didn't notice.

Headlight and more technical effluvia circa 1906.

Giant rivets and a beautiful weld at the most important joint of all; the front of the boiler.

Bottom of the piston cylinder completely rotted away. The bottom of the oil tender was just like this, and it was a plethora of scrapes and cuts on the kiddies that woke the town to do the restoration. Thanks, kids!

Drive wheels and connecting rods. My studies are about steamboats, not locomotives, and I mistakenly called these "Pitman Arms." Them's what turns the paddle wheels on steamboats.

Steam Dome manual release. Also makes the engine whistle.

Durn! Another hole!

After I climbed, photographed, sweated, cursed, and got filthy on the locomotive, I got off and frowned at Kelly, who, almost the entire time, sat in the cab chit-chatting with Mr. Chamber of Commerce. They even drank cold sodas! I agreed to get back to Mr. CoC with a bid, and as Kelly and I slipped out of town in my thankfully cold air-conditioned pickup, I growled and buffled at him.

"I climbed all over that damn white-hot piece of cast iron while you sat in the cab talking!" My anger was pretend, and he knew it. "Just what the hell were you doing all that time?"

He looked at me with a grin I would come to know and appreciate.

"Only getting the entire budget for the project."

I smiled and nodded.

"I think you'll fit in here nicely, Mr. Kelly."

And you know what? We came in way under what they intended to spend.

The locomotive after it was finished. TEN YEARS after it was finished. The following pictures show some slight re-rusting of some of the top components and peeling of the wood on the cab and cowcatcher, but it held up perty darned well, considering. Now I have to approach the city about touching it up, or it'll look like the first pics in no time.

I never got a chance to see the final product, since I set up the job, hired the subs, and sent my best crew down to do most of it without me. I was running the Estevan Hall Project in Helena at the time (look in early April for that post), and simply had no time to visit it, But I saw photos and got reports on the work constantly, and the Chamber of Commerce was happy, so I was happy, too.

In 2020 (actually only eight years after the job, but ten years until this post), I returned to visit the site and took these last pics. I really will contact the town to give advice on needed maintenance.

Not that I'M going to do it. I've been stuck here in Arkansas for two and a half years, mostly due to COVID. But I'm going back in a month.

That doesn't mean I can't stick my nose back into my own past business....

The back of the boiler, front of the cab, and the Control Center of some of the finest technology in 1906. There is a small brass plate visible above the heat shield (or whatever it is) above the doors to the firebox. It reads

BALDWIN CLASS 1030 D 507

STEAM TEST 200 LBS.

WATER TEST 240 LBS.

WORKING PRESSURE 180 LBS.

Seems like small numbers for such a strong machine.