Pennsylvania heritage collection tells the story of internal combustion engine development

Diane Kaylor
ASME Public Information

Any serious aficionado of internal combustion engines will tell you where to find Coolspring, Pa.

Well north of Pittsburgh, the Coolspring Power Museum holds an impressive variety of internal combustion engines, built primarily between 1890 and 1920 and consisting mainly of stationary engines used in industrial applications. This is the 20th-century power museum to which all others can be compared.

ASME designated this museum a Mechanical Engineering Heritage Collection in a ceremony on June 16, in which ASME President-Elect William A. Weiblen, P.E., presented the commemorative plaque. Its place on the landmarks roster helps to provide a more balanced representation of power history, so often told only for steam-power generation.

Early internal combustion engines produced only a few horsepower and were unable to replace steam engines in most applications until about 1890. By then, they were powerful enough for most portable or remote locations and many small manufacturers. By 1900, they were replacing reciprocating steam engines for electric generation, and by 1915, they were being considered for all but the largest installations, where steam turbines had dominated to date. Large reciprocating steam engines were limited to those situations where instantaneous reversal was required, such as for rolling mills, locomotives and marine service.

Among the approximately 250 internal combustion engines in the collection at The Coolspring Power Museum is the Miller 300. The internal combustion engine was manufactured in Springfield, Ohio, in 1913. It has four cylinders in an "H" configuration.

The Coolspring Power Museum exhibits most of the early solutions and innovations that affected the marketability of the stationary internal combustion engine. A few started as steam engines and were converted. Engine design evolution is sometimes shown by using sets of engines from specific companies over time. Some are general-purpose prime movers; others are single-purpose.

Built up from collections that John Wilcox and Paul Harvey began in the 1950s, this museum grew into what may be the largest U.S. collection of internal combustion engine technology, including about 250 engines, many of which are permanently mounted and operational.

Housed in 10 buildings, many pieces are now placed on loan. Many of the engines are large enough to have been headed for destruction if not acquired by the museum. There are few duplications found in the collection, and artifacts are from a widely diverse number of engine makers.

Among the operating engines are a 1902 Harvard-Stickney 3-hp single-cylinder farm engine, which was mass marketed by Sears Roebuck; a 1895 Climax 50-hp flour-mill engine, with disc crank and pendulum governor; an 1885 Schleicher-Schumm 2-hp engine that was the American licensee of Otto and is the second oldest operating engine in the United States; two of the four known surviving Westinghouse vertical engines, dating from 1901, one of which is operational; a 1901 National Transit Klein Model 5 (John Klein's last engine is considered a masterpiece), with a pneumatically operated variable cutoff governor; and a 1927 400-hp four-cylinder vertical air-injection diesel manufactured by Busch-Sulzer, the first American diesel manufacturer.

Among those on static display are a 1902 12-hp Gardner oil-field engine — the first convertible gas-to-steam engine manufactured — and a 1928 Otto diesel for refrigeration that is reported to be the last engine built by Otto in Philadelphia.

For more information from the online history center, visit www. asme.org/history, or the museum's Web site, www.coolspringpowermuseum.org; or by calling the Coolspring Power Museum at (814) 849-6883.

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