page_title: Marion Steam Shovel (Le Roy, New York)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Marion Steam Shovel (Le Roy, New York) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Marion Steam Shovel Model 90, 1908 image showing the shovel at work on the Panama Canal. Image taken from a 1915 Marion Shovel catalog. Company defunct; archives given to Marion Historical Society, Marion Ohio.
context_page_description: The Marion Steam Shovel, also known as the Le Roy Steam Shovel, is a historic Model 91 steam shovel manufactured by the Marion Steam Shovel and Dredge Company of Marion, Ohio. It is located on Gulf Road in the Town of Le Roy, New York, United States.
  Representative of the type of technology developed in the late 19th century and early 20th century to provide large, inexpensive supplies of crushed stone for the vast American railroad network and later for the road construction, it is believed to be the largest intact steam shovel remaining in the world, and may have been used in the excavation of the Panama Canal. No longer operational, it was moved to its current site in the mid-20th century. It is currently owned by the town. In 2008 it became the first steam shovel listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the only listing in the Town of Le Roy and the easternmost in Genesee County.
context_section_description: The Marion Power Shovel Company came into being in the 1880s as a collaboration between a frustrated shovel operator turned inventor and an industrialist. The former, Henry Barnhart, designed a new shovel that he hoped would break down less frequently than existing models. He went into business with financial backing from Edward Huber and patented the idea in 1883. The following year they partnered with another industrialist, George King, and started the company in Marion, Ohio. Over the next decades it grew into a major manufacturer of construction equipment.
  Steam shovels were in particular demand due to the need for crushed stone as ballast in the nation's railroad network, a demand that expanded in the early 20th century as roads began to be graveled and paved for use by motor vehicles. Le Roy, near the Onondaga Escarpment, was a prime location for limestone quarrying, atop a 150-foot (45.72 m) layer of the stone. Since shortly after its settlement in the early 19th century, Le Roy had supported several such operations. Most of the limestone had been produced for architectural use, and a number of extant buildings in the Le Roy area, including the Lathrop Chapel at Machpelah Cemetery, are made of locally quarried limestone.
  What eventually became the General Crushed Stone Company was founded in 1899 when the Duerr Contracting Company took over the Le Roy operations of a Tyrone, Pennsylvania, man who had been unable to meet the demands of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, a major customer. After two reorganizations, it became General Crushed Stone in 1902. Headquarters were in South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
  The company's president, James Madison Porter, equipped the quarries it operated with new equipment, particularly what was at the time the world's largest rock crusher. It began to pioneer the new field of manufacturing aggregate, particularly a patented blend called Amiesite, for road surfaces. By 1906 it had contracts for 500,000 short tons (450,000 long tons; 450,000 tonnes) of stone annually, two-thirds of which were purchased by the railroad. The Le Roy quarry produced 2,000 short tons (1,800 long tons; 1,800 tonnes) a day, most of which was shipped to the rail yards at Sayre, Pennsylvania.
  On March 14, 1906 the local newspaper at the time, the Le Roy Gazette, reported on the new equipment that began operation that day. In addition to the rock crusher, it mentioned a "100-ton steam shovel that was manufactured specifically for General Crushed Stone by the Barnard [sic] Steam Shovel Company of Marion, Ohio." It cannot be determined if the shovel described is the one currently on the site since a 1932 photograph of the quarry shows two such shovels in action. The Gazette describes the bucket as holding 5 cubic yards (3.8 m³), twice the capacity of the extant shovel's bucket, but the shovel was modified considerably after purchase and it is possible a smaller replacement bucket could have been installed as part of those changes.
  Company lore always claimed that the shovel was one of two purchased by General Crushed Stone in 1911 from the Isthmian Canal Commission, which had just finished building the Panama Canal; no documentation has yet been found to support this. It is possible since the shovel is one of 131 Model 91s that Marion manufactured during the first decade of the 20th century. Sixteen were purchased by the commission and used to dig the canal; one of them set what was then a world record in 1912 when it dug 5,554 cubic yards (4,246 m³) of earth from a pit at the site of Gatun Dam. The model plates have been removed from the Le Roy shovel, but it has been conclusively identified as a Model 91 since its dimensions match those in Marion's archived corporate records for the line. No other 91s are known to survive.
  The Model 91 required eight workers to operate. Four worked in the main section. The operator sat in the front booth  and used levers to move the hoist and lift and lower the bucket. When it was time to move the shovel he took care of that as well. A cranesman, who sat on the left-hand side of the bo
caption: A Marion steam shovel at work on the Panama Canal
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