Avery Rescued from Republican River

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A trench was dug in the bank, and a Caterpillar loader pulled the Avery on shore. Most of the 450 people in Scandia seemed to be on site, Ted recalls, watching the action. Excitement mounted as the salvage crew took stock.

“Once we got it out, we saw that the sight glass wasn’t broken, and when we pulled out a bottom handhold to drain the boiler water, we could feel how thick the boiler was,” Ted says. “Our eyeballs got real big then, because it seemed like this monster was practically brand-new, and could be restored.” Later, a putty knife was used to scrape away hardened sand, revealing “boiler number 49, June 27, 1916.”

The group was elated. Sixty-five years to the day after the flood of ’35, the Avery was on dry land. By that time, both Ted’s and Forrest’s hearts were beating a lot faster. “Forrest had a huge smile on his face,” Ted says. “That night, Forrest wanted to sleep in his pickup on the riverbank. That guy lived, ate, breathed and slept steam engines.”

Later, Forrest took Ted back to an old building on his property. “He said, ‘You take this Avery water tank, side irons, front door, front smoke ring, whistle and crosshead pump (with the original steam gauge).’ Over the years, he’d removed or bought all that stuff for future restoration.”

Once the crud was removed, the Avery was moved to higher ground. Then it was torn apart, piece by piece, bolt by bolt. “During the entire process, only a single bolt broke,” Ted marvels. “We sprayed penetrating oil, tapped nuts one way and then the other, and every one came out.” Most were rethreaded and used when the machine was reassembled.

Then the real work began. Jody Hicks, president of the NHPA/Nowthen Threshing Show, and Art Job, Ted’s neighbor, put in yeoman-like work restoring the Avery. “Jody helped every weekend except two, bead-blasting and priming almost every part smaller than 2-by-4 feet, and painted everything that wasn’t red,” Ted says. “She wasn’t afraid to get into the dirt and muck. The backs of the wheel cleats were packed with mud, so they had to come off. She chipped out the mud, sandblasted, primed and painted.”

Art brought a lifetime of welding experience to the job. “If only part of a quadrant of a gear remained, and the other part was broken off,” Ted says, “Art recreated what was missing instead of making an entirely new part. If half was there, he made the new part, and brazed or welded it together.”

He also worked on the most difficult part of the entire project, making rear axles. “One was bent and one was broken, so rather than make new castings, he took 7/8-inch plate steel and cut the gussets, with 1-inch steel plate across the back, and used 5-1/2-inch round stock bored through to make room for a 3-1/2-inch axle to be fitted in,” Ted says. “To make it squared up and true, that took the longest. I don’t know what I would have done without Art.”

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