The Engineers Said Nothing Can Pull It Out — Then the Old Man Fired Up His 1912 Steam Engine… – Part 2

And your steamer? My steamer doesn’t know any better. It just pulls. If I tell it to pull until something breaks, it’ll pull until something breaks. The only computer is me, and I know when to stop and when to keep going. Frank was quiet for a long time. I spent 30 years in this business, he said finally. Built my company from nothing.

always believed that newer was better, that more technology meant more capability. Yesterday, a machine from 1912 did what my milliondoll equipment couldn’t do. Your equipment is better for most things, Walter said. Faster, more precise, easier to operate. But there are some jobs where the old ways still work best. The trick is knowing which jobs those are.

How much do I owe you? I told you donation to the historical society. How much of a donation? Walter thought about it. What do you think 3 days of delays cost you? >> Close to $70,000. Then give them $10,000. That’s more money than they’ve ever seen. They can use it to preserve machines like this one.

Machines that people laugh at until they need them. Frank reached into his jacket and pulled out a checkbook. He wrote the check without hesitating, tore it off, and handed it to Walter. $10,000 to the Clayton County Historical Society, Frank said. And my personal thanks. I won’t forget what you did. Most people forget. I won’t. Frank looked at the steam engine one more time.

You know what I learned yesterday? I learned that my greatgrandfather was smarter than me. He didn’t have computers or hydraulics or any of the things I thought were essential. He just had machines like this one and the knowledge of how to use them. He was smarter than both of us. Walter said he built a world that worked. We just inherited it.

Let me tell you about the years that followed. Because Walter Brennan became something he never expected to become famous. The story of the swamp rescue spread far beyond Clayton County. A reporter from the De Moines Register came out to interview Walter, then a television crew from Cedar Rapids. By the end of October, the steam engine had been featured in three newspapers, two TV segments, and a magazine article about vintage technology making a comeback.

The phone started ringing. Construction companies, logging operations, farmers with equipment stuck in impossible places. They all called Walter asking if he could help. Most of the jobs were beyond his range. He couldn’t exactly drive a steam tractor to Minnesota, but some were local, and Walter never said no. Over the next 5 years, Walter Brennan and his 1912 Case steam engine pulled out 11 pieces of modern equipment that nothing else could move.

Two excavators, a bulldozer, a cement truck, four grain trucks, and three combines that had gotten stuck in the same swamp on the same farm 3 years running. You’d think they’d learn, Walter said after the third combine. He never charged for the work. Every rescue ended the same way. A donation to the Clayton County Historical Society, whatever the owner could afford.

By 1997, the society had enough money to build a proper museum, a building dedicated to preserving the steam powered equipment that had built the Midwest. Walter’s case was the centerpiece of the collection. Not permanently. Walter still kept the engine at his farm, still fired it up once a month, still drove it to county fairs and steam shows, but the museum built a special display for it.

With photographs of the swamp rescue and testimonials from the people Walter had helped. The plaque on the display read, “Case steam traction engine 1912. Owner Walter Brennan. This machine was built before World War I and is still working today. It has rescued over a million dollars in modern equipment from situations that modern technology couldn’t solve.

Some things don’t become obsolete. They just wait for people to remember why they were built. Let me tell you about one last thing because it happened in 2001, the year Walter Brennan died. Walter was 72 years old when Frank Donny’s excavator got stuck. He was 82 when his heart gave out on a September morning, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse where he’d spent his entire life.

His son, Martin, found him there with a cup of coffee in his hand and a small smile on his face. The steam engine was visible from the porch, parked in its shed, the same place August Brennan had parked it 70 years before. The funeral was the biggest Clayton County had seen in decades. Frank Donnelly came, older now, but still running his construction company.

He told the story of the swamp rescue to anyone who would listen. “This man saved my business,” Frank said. “Not just my excavator, my business. I was bleeding money. My reputation was on the line.” And an old farmer with an older machine did what all my engineers said was impossible.

After the funeral, Martin Brennan took over the farm and the steam engine. He’d grown up learning to operate it, learning to maintain it, learning the patience required to build steam and the skill required to use it. The first time he fired up the engine after his father’s death, the whistle echoed across the Iowa flatland, just like it always had.

But this time, Martin could have sworn he heard something different in the sound. Not just steam escaping through brass, but his father’s voice and his grandfather’s voice and all the voices of the men who had stood where he was standing, hands on the throttle of a machine that refused to become obsolete. Let me tell you the final thing because it’s what Walter would have wanted you to know.

The 1912 Case steam traction engine is still running. Martin Brennan still fires it up once a month. He still takes it to county fairs and steam shows. He still gets calls from people with equipment stuck in impossible places. And he still never says no. In 2015, 23 years after the original swamp rescue, Martin pulled out another caterpillar excavator.

This one belonging to Frank Donny’s grandson, who had taken over the family construction company and made exactly the same mistake his grandfather had made. Your grandfather warned me about this swamp,” the young man said, watching the steam engine pull his excavator to safety. He said, “The only thing that could get equipment out of here was your family’s machine.

” “What did you say?” I said, “That was ridiculous. That was 1992. We have better technology now.” Martin smiled. And how did that work out for you? About like you’d expect. The young man shook his head. My grandfather was right. Some things don’t become obsolete. They just wait for people to forget and then they remind us.

Martin shut down the engine and let out the whistle one last time. The sound echoed across the Iowa flatland. The same sound that had echoed there for over a hundred years. The same sound that would echo there for a hundred more if the Brennan family had anything to say about it. The engineers say that steam power is ancient history. The experts say that modern machines can do anything.

The construction companies say that there’s nothing their equipment can’t handle. But somewhere in Clayton County, Iowa, there’s a shed behind a barn where a 1912 case steam traction engine sits waiting. Its boiler can still hold pressure. Its gears still turn. Its 6-ft drive wheels can still grip any surface and pull any weight. It’s been there for over a hundred years now.

And every time someone says nothing can pull that out, the Brennan family fires up the engine, sounds the whistle, and proves them wrong. That’s the story of the swamp rescue. The story of a machine that refused to become obsolete and a family that refused to let it. The engineers laughed, the steam whistle answered, and the excavator came out of the mud.