ATHABASCA — She’s 110 years old, she doesn’t move, there aren't many like her left, and now she sits as a reminder of what it took to build Athabasca.
If you’ve ever ventured near the iconic ‘Old Brick School’ as it’s affectionately called, you may have noticed an old steam tractor sitting outside and wondered what it has to do with the school.
Well, nothing. It was just the location chosen by the mayor and council of the Town of Athabasca in 2015, said Athabasca Classic Cruisers president Dan Huber.
“We wanted to put it down in the circle by the river front, but they wouldn't let us do that,” he said. “They suggested we stick it by the school, so that’s where it got put.”
The Gaar-Scott tractor was built in the former Spring Foundry in Richmond, Virginia, after the A. Gaar Company purchased it sometime in the mid-1800s. Jonas Gaar, along with his sons Abraham and John and his son-in-law William Scott produced threshing machines, tractor engines and other farm equipment, and shipped their products worldwide.
In 1911, they were bought out by the M. Rumley Co. of LaPorte, Indiana, which went bankrupt during the Great Depression, but the line of award-winning tractors was already long gone — the last one rolling off the line in 1912.
Athabasca is a long way from Virginia though and the tractor is believed to come from Fort Saskatchewan by way of the Remple-Stelter lumber mill near Lawrence Lake. William Remple sold it to Northland Utilities in 1940, which was then bought by Calgary Power, which then turned the antique over to the town sometime before 1973 – it was running and in a parade in 1961 – but ownership at the time is unknown.
Huber said it sat for several years before arriving at its new home.
“When they parked it in behind the old train station and left it, they never covered the stack and water got into the boiler and rusted everything out,” he said. “Plus, when it got full of water in there it also cracked some of the casting and that stuff is not fixable.”
And there it sat for over four decades, left to the elements, but when town council was about to ship it off to Westlock, the car club stepped in.
“They probably would have stripped it for parts for another one they had sitting around there and we said, ‘No, we’re not letting you ship it off to Westlock, we’ll fix it up and park it somewhere as a local attraction,’ which it now is,” Huber said.
It took many hands to get it to that spot though. Northwest Fabricators cleaned it up and painted it and Steve’s Towing hauled it both to Northwest and the pad it resides on now.
“We just looked after the coordination of it all and kind of got all of that done for nothing basically,” said Huber.
He said they even decorated it with Christmas lights until someone stole them, but now it’s a piece of history, among many in the Athabasca region, and a reminder of a time long before cell phones or paved roads.
