I found this article in the LeRoy Pennysaver from 11Dec06:
Made Marion
by Lynne Belluscio
We almost missed the 100th anniversary of “Marion” the steam shovel on the Gulf Road. The 1906 Le Roy Gazette reported that the 100-ton steam shovel was manufactured in Marion, Ohio for the General Crushed Stone Company, which in 1906 operated the largest rock crusher in the world. The company needed a shovel to load stone from the quarry into the small railroad cars that conveyed the large stones to the crusher. The steam shovel was known as a 5-yard dipper. Originally, when the Marion came to Le Roy, it moved on railroad tracks, which had to be laid in the bottom of the quarry. A crew of men relaid the tracks when the shovel moved to a new rock face.
In 1921 the Marion Company manufactured a “kit” to change the railroad wheels to caterpillar tracks but it wasn’t until 1923 or ’24 that the Le Roy shovel was adapted to caterpillar tracks. The Marion shovel worked in the quarry for forty three years and in June 1949 it was driven out of the quarry by Manny Stefani and parked near the edge of Gulf Road where it is now. One of the locomotives and a tip car were displayed with it. (Several years ago, General Crushed Stone gave the “Dinky” to a collector near Syracuse and it was moved, much to the dismay of all the people who had worked in the quarry!)
The Le Roy shovel is called a partial swing shovel since it doesn’t move 360 degrees. The main frame is mounted on two all-steel heavy-duty trucks (sometimes called bogies). The axels are driven by chains and gears from the main, reversible engines on the deck of the shovel. The power for the equipment is a locomotive-type boiler with reversible hoisting, swinging and thrusting (or crowd) engines.
The Le Roy shovel has the original Marion boiler, although it is not in operating condition. The lower flues are badly rusted and the doors are broken. Attached to the front of the frame, or car, is the swing circle, on which is mounted the excavating equipment which consists of the boom, the dipper handle, the dipper and the thrusting engines. Unfortunately the thrusting engines are mounted on the boom and have been exposed to the weather and are full of water. The other two engines seem to be in working condition. The boom is split which allows the swing of the dipper handle. The dipper is made of heavy steel plates and the teeth are made of manganese steel. Kermit Arrington told me that his father often removed and sharpened the teeth.
The steam shovel was invented by an American, William S. Otis in 1836. It was the first efficient dry-land single bucket excavator and was a partial swing machine, like the Marion in Le Roy. The full swing, revolving shovel was introduced in 1884 in England. The advantages of the revolving shovel was eventually recognized and the railroad shovel was doomed.
Although it has been rumored that the Le Roy Marion had been used to dig the Panama Canal, that is not the case.
However, Marion shovels like the Le Roy shovel were used in Panama. The Le Roy shovel is probably the largest known surviving track shovel. With that in mind, we will be trying to have the shovel listed on the National Register, but we need to secure a lot more information. Irene Walters, Town Historian will be collecting oral histories from the people and the families of people who worked in the quarry and around the shovel. The Historical Society is looking for photographs and any artifacts – if they exist. (We don’t need to keep the original photos, but can make good copies for the collection.) We hope to have a meeting sometime in January for anyone interested in sharing stories or helping with the project. If you would like to know about the meeting, call 768-7433 and we’ll put you on the mailing list.
