In his 1914 Avery Company undermount steam engine, Dan Erickson is capable of a great number of things, including threshing, hedge pulling and corn shelling. At the Central Illinois Threshermen’s Reunion, however, he also uses his machine for rock crushing.
The demonstrations at the Threshermen’s Park sees an individual toss blocks of concrete into a rock crusher, which is powered by a steam engine and a pulley belt. primary crusher and secondary crusher
The seemingly mundane demonstration activity belies the practical importance of rock crushing in our nation’s past, according to Jack Carson, who, at 87 years of age, has been around steam engines long enough to know a thing or two about their importance and history.
“They built highways with the rock crushers,” he said. “They were larger than the ones we use out here to crush rock. They have a big one in Iowa, in the Quad Cities that needs a great big loader.
“They dump the rocks right down in that thing, and it took a lot of crushed rock to make a lot of highways we use today.
“Back where I’m from in New York, they used shale for the highways. But shale would break up after awhile, so they went to the rock crusher to make asphalt and highways that would hold up.
“I think the best highways now are where they’re using blacktop instead of concrete, because concrete breaks up after awhile.”
Carson also mentioned his own personal experience with rock crushing that underscores its significance.
“On the St. Lawrence Seaway, we went up there and I worked on a drag line, and we dragged out a great big hole, and it was dynamited,” he said. “All that rock was used in the crusher, and it was used in the building of the Iroquois Dam.”
Carson believes that even antiquated engines like Erickson’s Avery still have had a use in recent history.
“Farmers could still use those things,” he said. “Even the smaller ones, to make smaller roads out in the country or to get from one farm to another.
“Where I lived, and was born, they had a long dirt road. In order to make it into an asphalt road, the farmers used a pretty big rock crusher, and it took a pretty big engine like this one here (Erickson’s) to run it. So they can still use those things.”
Indeed, the rock crushed out at the Threshermen’s Park is used to fill in holes of streets surrounding the park.
For Erickson, he’s glad that he can use his steam engine to show off what a bygone era could do.
“It belonged to my father, and they used it for lots, including threshing,” he said. “But it really makes for good use in pulling hedge, the way it’s designed with the gears being so low. It pulls really good backwards, and a lot of other engines aren’t designed like that.
mobile concrete crusher “I’ve been doing this all my life, and it means a lot to come out here and show this kind of stuff off. It’s just really in my blood.”