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; but 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.