This Month at Coolspring Power Museum: July 2024

Coolspring Power Museum is open during two days this month.  Our Open Days are July 20 and 21 (Saturday and Sunday).  On July 20 we host our History Day and our Antique Car, Truck & Tractor Show Special Events.  Please see our Events page for information about these Special Events, including admission details.

Our event hours on July 20 are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Our hours on July 21 are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In the most recent edition of The Flywheel, our online publication, Paul Harvey presents a history of the Marinette engines and tells the interesting story of the museum's Marinette.

Those Fabulous Foos Gas Engines, Volume 30 of our Bores & Strokes booklets, is available for over-the-counter purchase at the museum gift shop.  This volume of Bores & Strokes celebrates the history of the Foos Gas Engine Company.  Author Kieth Monnier brings together a collection of photos of a variety of Foos engines and memorabilia, includes a technical description of Foos engines, and gives a history of the Fulton Ironworks, successor to Foos. Volume 30 also includes a reprint of Preston Foster's Bores & Strokes Volume 10, as well as a musical treat!

Carlisle & Finch, Volume 29 of our Bores & Strokes booklets, is now available for mail order purchase.  Please visit our Publications page for more information on the Bores & Strokes booklets.

When you visit Coolspring Power Museum consider making a short side trip to see the Greenberg Cadillac Museum, which houses the world's largest collection of Cadillac automobiles.  The Greenberg Museum is open on these dates in 2024:

May 18 and 19
June 22 and 23
July 20 and 21
August 17 and 18
September 21 and 22
October 19 and 20

Visit greenbergcadillacmuseum.com for hours and for further information.

E-Mail Updates From Coolspring Power Museum

Stay in touch with our many activities by joining our mailing list for E-mail updates from the museum.  You will receive information about our upcoming events and our current and future projects.  Please use our E-mail List Form to join.  Museum membership is NOT required to join the list.

In Progress at Coolspring Power Museum

Our Fairbanks Morse opposed piston engine again showed its value as a living history exhibit at our Fall Exposition.  This engine and generator once provided electrical power to an estate on Georgia's Sapelo Island.  Brought to the museum and restored to running condition, it represents a step in the evolution of diesel engine technology.  Read more about this engine's story from its Virtual Tour on our Exhibits page.

Now Available from Coolspring Power Museum

Flame Ignition: A Historical Account of Flame Ignition in the Internal Combustion Engine by Wayne S. Grenning.  This book is a scholarly work describing flame ignition as applied to reciprocating engines, from early experiments to later successes such as the Deutz and Crossley versions of the four stroke cycle perfected by Otto in 1876. Wayne discusses problems encountered by the early entrants into the gas engine industry, highlighting solutions discovered by the various players.  He also goes into more arcane subjects like the constant pressure cycle introduced by Brayton that survives today in the gas turbine engine, to a look at toy non-compression engines produced during the same early days as their full size brethren.  In eight chapters, Wayne shows details of engines built by Clerk, Sombart, Forest and others, gives technical details on the construction and operating features unique to flame ignition engines, and highlights the struggles other manufacturers endured to avoid infringing the Otto patents. The section on the four-stroke-cycle engines is by itself over 300 pages long, covering 30 different companies. It has 67 pages describing the activities of Crossley Brothers in Manchester, England and another 53 pages dedicated to Gasmotoren Fabrik Deutz from Cologne, Germany.

Regular hard bound edition, 875 pages, $79.95 + shipping and handling. Special leather bound edition, $149.95 + shipping and handling. Limited printing. The book is printed in color on semi-gloss paper for enhanced picture reproduction.  Book size is 8½ x 11 inches with dust jacket.  Please see our Publications page for ordering information.

About the Author:  Wayne Grenning has been interested in engines for decades and has restored many early engines, flame ignition and otherwise, as well as creating operating scale and full size models of a variety of early flame ignition and non-compressing engines. A fixture at Coolspring during the shows, Wayne has gathered all of his knowledge together into this book as a technical and historical reference to this important chapter in internal combustion engine history.

The Coolspring Power Museum Collection

Internal combustion engines revolutionized the world around the turn of the 20th century in much the same way that steam engines did a century before.  One has only to imagine a coal-fired, steam-powered, airplane to realize how important internal combustion was to the industrialized world.  While the early stationary gas engines were more expensive than the equivalent steam engines, they did not require a boiler and were cheaper to operate.

The Coolspring Power Museum collection documents the early history of the internal combustion revolution.  Almost all of the critical components of today's engines have their origins in the period represented by the collection (as well as hundreds of innovations that are no longer used).  Some of the engines represent real engineering progress.  Others are more the product of inventive minds avoiding previous patents.  All tell a story.  There are few duplications in the collection and only a couple of manufacturers are represented by more than one or two examples.

The Coolspring Power Museum contains the largest collection of historically significant, early stationary gas engines in the country, if the not the world.  With the exception of a few items in the collection that were driven by the engines, such as compressors, pumps, and generators, and a few steam and hot air engines shown for comparison purposes, the collection contains only stationary internal combustion engines.

The collection consists mainly of stationary gas engines used in industrial applications.  There are only a few marine, automotive, and farm engines in the collection and the museum does not plan to expand its focus into those areas. Most of the museum's acquisitioning efforts (those that involve substantial expenditure of funds and volunteer time) have been focused on collecting important large stationary engines that most likely would be scrapped if the museum did not acquire them.

The museum's passive collecting efforts are directed at filling technological gaps in the collection by accepting donations from private collectors and occasionally other museums.  The museum also maintains a substantial library and archive related to the objects in the collection and to the internal combustion engine in general.  The Collection consists primarily of engines built in America because that is what was available to the museum.  However, the technology on which they are based comes from both sides of the Atlantic.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognizes Coolspring Power Museum as a Mechanical Engineering Heritage Collection.  Please see our History page for more information.

Cam-Ron Video Productions prepared an installment of their Kaleidoscope The Series program showcasing Coolspring Power Museum.  This video gives a brief history of the museum, features a number of museum volunteers and visitors, and overviews a few of the museum's exhibits.

You may also view the video directly on YouTube.