00:10 - This is the engine.

00:12 - Different come as famous as there's the house

00:15 - rejected

00:16 - today all that stands is for ruined walls

00:20 - in the remains of the mine

00:21 - which is now a waterfield

00:23 - mine pit my name is Mark Connor

00:26 - and i am a community advocate for the president

00:28 - pumping engine

00:29 - and the freedom civil the minds

00:31 - when my personal interest in this

00:32 - really goes back to my childhood when i was

00:35 - young

00:36 - we used to a ride down

00:38 - from Bethlehem i lived in Bethlehem

00:40 - we used to ride down to sauk valley and the

00:42 - in the back of my appearance studebaker.

00:45 - I

00:45 - haven't been studebaker for many years but we used to ride down and

00:49 - i saw this

00:50 - building off to the right and a look to me exactly like a castle

00:54 - and i was a

00:55 - three four year old five year old boy

00:57 - and it just a really excited me to think that this was a castle i used to imagine

01:02 - you at nights a

01:03 - damsels in distress all dragons all the things that at.

01:07 - A young.

01:08 - Fellow would think about

01:10 - and i always

01:12 - always had a strong interest but

01:14 - you know life intervene i went to had to go to school

01:18 - had to go to university had to have a job for forty years

01:20 - but when i retired in two thousand and fourteen i said

01:23 - i really want to understand that building better so i started to research

01:27 - and

01:28 - by two thousand and sixteen i felt i had enough

01:32 - information sure to go to the property owner

01:33 - which at this time was now lehigh university

01:36 - to explain the historical significance of the building and the site.

01:40 - We had a twenty page paper at the time

01:42 - today that papers over a hundred and seventy pages

01:45 - because we continue to learn

01:47 - interesting facts are important facts about the structures the minds and the.

01:52 - In the intervening years in both the nineteenth

01:56 - and twentieth century the real operational

01:57 - issue at this mine was

01:59 - was water.

02:01 - Many of described this ma these my just being the wettest minds

02:05 - in america up

02:06 - some say there are actually the wettest minds in the world

02:08 - so in the eighteenth in the nineteenth century when they started to.

02:13 - Mind deeper and deeper into the mine pit they got down to

02:17 - fifty feet and they were encountering a lot of water

02:20 - they had to come up with differ pump pumping mechanisms to get the water out

02:24 - by the time they got down to around one hundred feet

02:27 - they really needed to do something that was extraordinary

02:30 - and and eighteen

02:32 - eighteen sixty eight.

02:34 - The high zinc company the owners of the mine

02:36 - commissioned

02:37 - a cornish board

02:39 - mining engineer mechanical engineer your by name of John west

02:43 - to design

02:44 - a

02:44 - pump that would solve the water problem

02:47 - in anticipation that the my was going

02:49 - going to go down to a depth of around three hundred feet

02:52 - so that started and eighteen sixty eight it was.

02:55 - Designed of course by John west

02:57 - it was built it by a company called American sons in Philadelphia well known foundry

03:03 - in Philadelphia built the engine.

03:06 - It was installed on site

03:08 - and completed by eighteen seventy one

03:10 - and started up in

03:11 - a

03:11 - early and eighteen safe at seventy two

03:14 - it is a

03:15 - was known at the time and

03:17 - and depending on how you you say it it was wasn't fact

03:20 - the largest single cylinder stationary steam engine ever made

03:24 - anywhere in the world

03:25 - so

03:26 - attracted a great deal of interest and not only locally but far-flung

03:31 - it was capable of drawing seventeen thousand gallons of water per minute

03:35 - from the mind

03:36 - and that.

03:37 - If you think about that that's

03:39 - twenty four point five million gallons a day

03:41 - of water that it was able to extract

03:43 - it is the core reason why the mine was able to survive in the nineteenth century.

03:48 - Had they not

03:49 - there was no other solution

03:51 - had they not had the president they would have had to

03:53 - close a minds

03:55 - which would have been unfortunate as demise represented over half the

03:59 - zinc or produced in the country at the time.

04:02 - Throwing the model.

04:06 - We worked with the

04:08 - and Anthony monte he lives in the little village called bampton in Devon england

04:14 - and in

04:15 - britain he's an award winning model to

04:17 - model builder

04:18 - and etonian i got in touch a

04:21 - backup

04:22 - let's say about about two thousand and sixteen

04:25 - and we started talking and he said he really would like to.

04:28 - Build a

04:29 - model of the president.

04:31 - The problem was we didn't have original drawings of the engine

04:35 - and

04:35 - surprisingly there were never any photographs mate

04:39 - we had photographs of the outside the building

04:40 - but not of the engine itself so working with the museums and archival information we

04:46 - were able to get enough information together that Tony could make this model

04:50 - but this was not a quick process the model took five years to build

04:54 - sending information back and forth

04:57 - to in order to really create

04:59 - a very

04:59 - exact copy of what the president engine would

05:04 - look looked like and as you can see the scale

05:05 - how big this engine was by the

05:07 - by the the little while workmen figure that we have down

05:10 - against the wall.

05:12 - At lehigh valley was really kind of a cradle of the American industry

05:23 - and Andrea's i am

05:25 - and i'm the fia the president at the national museum of industrial history

05:29 - we are gathering to honor the ph m see historical marker reveal

05:36 - at the president pumping engine house at the freedom

05:39 - zinc mine

05:40 - early on

05:41 - especially in our site here in south African

05:44 - the zinc mine company had a processing plant along the lehigh river and it was really

05:49 - the first large scale industrial enterprise on this

05:53 - what then became the second largest steel company

05:57 - in the in the country the time so this was the

06:01 - haunted the Bethlehem steel Bethlehem plant.

06:02 - Really it was that

06:03 - zinc company that got things started they had similar

06:08 - members on their boards in the mid nineteenth century

06:09 - so we really see that

06:12 - this was really the beginning of this huge

06:15 - industrial.

06:18 - Empire that that the lehigh valley became

06:20 - especially in the twentieth century

06:22 - there will be a point in my talk will

06:24 - start to feel like i'm more in a classroom is an engineering professor

06:27 - and geek out a little bit so the engineers in the crowd join in the rest of you

06:31 - it won't last long

06:33 - we're thrilled to be able to present

06:36 - to host this event

06:38 - to welcome Pennsylvania historical museum commission representatives

06:42 - and to share this incredible experience with our community

06:46 - so we're looking forward to continuing to celebrate

06:49 - the innovation

06:50 - that happened here on the say which was one of the largest pumping engines in the world

06:55 - and to be able to continue to share that story with our museum visitors and gas.

07:00 - Laughs.

07:10 - Here

07:16 - in Pennsylvania we have such an amazing industrial heritage

07:20 - i mean we were clearly the heart of the industrial revolution that occurred

07:24 - in this country

07:25 - and so did documents some of the most significant places in the state

07:30 - really contributed to that industrial heritage

07:33 - to the changes in technology and innovation in our

07:37 - state and nation in the world

07:39 - are really important to so that's why places

07:42 - like right here the Bethlehem steel area

07:44 - but also items like the prisoners pomp

07:48 - really are an important part of American industry oral history

07:51 - in the greater sense of the world's innovation

07:54 - the marker will Mark

07:56 - a place that either is.

07:59 - Connected with a person and event.

08:03 - A

08:03 - piece of history

08:05 - a building

08:06 - that has

08:07 - a significant Pennsylvania

08:10 - American and at most times even an international significance

08:14 - not easy to get the signs

08:15 - you have to compete and

08:17 - submit a lot of information

08:19 - about the history in order to

08:21 - be able to to achieve this recognition one i

08:25 - always say it's kind of like doing a masters thesis

08:26 - you've got to do the research you've got to justify why this really is so significant

08:32 - in history and you've got a documented all so it's an awful lot of work.

08:37 - There are twenty six hundred markers in Pennsylvania

08:40 - so there's a lot of great history in our commonwealth

08:43 - but this

08:45 - again every time we get a new application

08:47 - the people who did it did an awful lot of work documenting

08:51 - what was so significant about the person event

08:54 - or item that they're trying to document

08:56 - and in the case of the president pumping engine

08:58 - it met met that test and so we're very pleased

09:01 - to have this order

09:03 - we are are also excited the American society of mechanical

09:08 - engineers the anthracite and lehigh valley chapter

09:09 - is going to recognize the engine as well

09:12 - as a

09:12 - as a milestone in the history of mechanical engineer.

09:17 - As well.

09:24 - I'd have probably

09:25 - too many people borrow phrases from Churchill but i'm going to have

09:28 - going to take a risk and do it again.

09:30 - I don't see this as an endpoint but i see maybe it's

09:34 - the end of the beginning where we have managed to

09:37 - get some recognition for the engine

09:40 - through this model here at the museum

09:42 - from all the good support were getting from lehigh.

09:45 - As well as a museum and others

09:47 - so we have

09:48 - improve the appearance of the

09:51 - entrance to where they're pumping engine ruins are located.

09:55 - In our next step is really

09:56 - developing this into a heritage park

09:59 - where people can come into the property

10:01 - see the ruins of the engine which will be stabilized and

10:05 - preserved

10:06 - and can also see the mind pair and many of the other

10:09 - interesting features

10:10 - because this is really a nineteenth century

10:13 - time capsule

10:14 - it was truly an engineering feat of the

10:17 - nineteenth century

10:18 - just as such a famous story

10:21 - in the history of industrial engineering

10:24 - that it truly is something that should be my Mark forever.

10:27 - As.