Heavy Construction Has a World Changing History
Nowadays, the consequences of heavy construction is all around us with super high rise buildings at every block in every city. However, the history of heavy construction and the equipment used during the process is long and deep. So much so, that there is an entire non-profit organization set up to preserve the history of the construction equipment that changed and shaped our world.
The Historical Construction Equipment Association is run by dedicated staff members who preserve the history of the construction industry. Additionally, they preserve the history of the dredging and surface mining industries, their applications and types of equipment. The Historical Construction Equipment Association operates the National Construction Equipment Museum in Bowling Green, Ohio. The Museum preserves and displays historic literature, photographs, business records, and much more for manufacturing companies from the 1870s to today.
The importance of having a museum like this is to protect what would otherwise become heaps of broken down and unusable pieces of heavy construction equipment. These would normally be dismantled for the parts, used for scrap metal or just left to the elements. As well, the administrative and sales records of the company is usually thrown out to avoid being seen by the public and to prevent researchers from reviewing them. Often times, they are kept within family collections to protect and preserve them. This is why it's so important to create a museum that allows the public to discover this key piece of our history.
Since 1992, The National Construction Equipment Museum has rented a piece of open land in Bowling Green, Ohio that offers public displays of the historic machinery, exhibits and other artifacts. The collection has over fifty pieces of machinery that are representative of the development and history of the construction industry. In all, the artifacts and equipment will take you through the industry from the 1800's to the mid 1960's.
There is even a section of the Museum where volunteers restore machines to working order and revive their origin appearance and condition. The volunteers are not all from the construction industry, although they do share a passion for heavy construction machinery. At this point in the Museum's development, there are over 2,600 manufacturing companies represented by either artifact, record or piece of equipment.
Also, the heavy construction industry has many branches and businesses it affects. Many of these affiliate companies can be identified through the Museum's collection that includes truck and trailers, attachments, engines and components, mining contracts, dealers and auctioneers, non-profit organizations and even government agencies. Many of the archived companies span from the 1870s to the present day, including major collections of records from the Marion Power Shovel Company, Euclid, Volvo Construction Products, Clark Equipment Company, Austin-Western, the Cleveland Trencher Company and many more.
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