Coolspring Power Museum Summer Expo Begins Thursday

COOLSPRING, Pa. (EYT) — The Coolspring Power Museum Summer Expo and Flea Market will be held from Thursday through Saturday.

The event celebrates engines and related artifacts brought to the museum by many exhibitors.

The gas engine show featuring all of the museum’s antique internal combustion engines will be held in 15 buildings.

The special exhibition this year will be “One of a Kind” engines.

Also, there will be a food court and a large flea market with 20 acres of grounds filled with things to see.

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.

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.

Founded in 1985, the 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 while 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 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.

For more information call 814-849-6883, email cpm@coolspringpowermuseum.org, or visit www.coolspringpowermuseum.org.