Avery Rescued from Republican River

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Meanwhile, Ted McNamara was getting involved in steam. “I traded a pickup with a snow plow for a 1/2-scale 65 hp Case steam traction engine,” he recalls, “and got rid of my gas engines and the smell.” Later, while driving to a show, Ted spotted Gene Zopfi, Champlin, Minn., firing up his 1/4-scale model steam engine and 24 hp Minneapolis engine. Their budding friendship drew Ted into the NHPA.

That’s when Ted heard about the buried Avery. Gene was part of the group (including George Benson, Matt DeMars and Gary Bendickson) that had visited Forrest. Ted was totally captivated by the tale: His passion for the project provided the emotional spark. Gene and George agreed to finance the project; ultimately Ted would buy them out. The men discussed possibilities. “Forrest said if we could get the Avery out, he would give it to us,” Ted says. “My eyeballs got big, because the initial engine investment is big, plus all the money for the boiler and repair work.”

But after 65 years in the river, they figured, the Avery would be junk. Nevertheless, as a tribute to Forrest, the group decided to try to recover the Avery and truck it 600 miles to the NHPA show grounds. There, they planned to plant it on a concrete slab, “a memorial to the ‘lost but not forgotten,’” Ted says.

Meanwhile, Gene did paperwork with the Kansas attorney general’s office, establishing that, at the location of the steamer, the Republican River was non-navigable. Adjacent landowners retained milling rights on both sides of the river, allowing access to the steamer. Then, on Memorial Day weekend, a golden opportunity arose. “Shirley and Henry Strenad, who own the land on either side of the river, called to say the river was the lowest they had ever seen,” Ted recalls. The water level that May was just knee deep; 4 inches of the engine’s water tank showed above the surface.

Rental equipment was too expensive, but Shirley came to the rescue with a flatbed trailer, Caterpillar D-7 crawler and backhoe. The Minnesota contingent procured an air compressor, telephone poles, railroad ties, and cribbing and blocking materials to make a skid.

After 40 minutes of pumping, most of the debris and water was removed. “When the Avery was exposed enough,” Ted says, “we ran a cable down from the backhoe and wrapped a 6-inch nylon strap around it.” The Avery wouldn’t budge. The Caterpillar D-7 (with a snatch block) was hooked up. It pulled; the backhoe wiggled. Ten minutes later, the Avery shuddered and bubbles rose to the surface. Then it came loose. Slowly the buried engine began to rise out of the muck, covered with hard sand and calcium deposits resembling barnacles. “At that point we could hardly keep Forrest away from it,” Ted says. “We had to pull him back, he was so excited.”

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