[SEL] Special Treat for Portland

[Roger DiRuscio]

I wonder if there is any connection with the Clarke-Troller canoe motors
(Small outboards) of Detroit Mich. Same spelling same time period I think.

Roger DiRuscio, Broker Associate,
The Realty Experts, Fremont, Ca
Sales since 1977, 510-797-4000 ofc
Collector of cool antique engines
Website; scrapologist.com
Fremont CERT,Ham Radio; KG6QKZ

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Keith Kinney" <kkinney at herculesengines.com>
To: "The SEL email discussion list" <sel at lists.stationary-engine.com>
Cc: <stationary-engine at oldengine.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2005 9:03 PM
Subject: [SEL] Special Treat for Portland


> In 1898 two brothers opened a gas engine factory in Evansville, Indiana, 
> the Clarke Gas Engine Company.   They made mostly marine engines until the 
> mid-1930.  It is estimated that they only made about 300 engines.  With 
> Evansville being my hometown, I have a special interest in the Clarke Gas 
> Engines and have 5 of them in our collection.
>
> In doing research about the history of the company I found the son of one 
> of the founders still living, Berry Clarke.  He currently lives in Fort 
> Wayne, Indiana which is about an hour north of Portland.  I contacted him 
> several years ago and during a visit with him got a lot of good 
> information about the company.  He had a 4 HP Clarke engine that we just 
> finished restoring for him.  With the engine now complete I called to see 
> if he would be interested in coming to Portland to pick up the engine. 
> His comment was something like this... "Since I'm 82 years old and you 
> have done all the work to restore the engine, and since you have such a 
> nice web page about the Clarke engines, why don't you just keep it".  He 
> even mailed me an original Schebler carburetor left over from the Clarke 
> factory.  As you can imagine I was thrilled.  To date we've only been able 
> to locate about a dozen or so Clarke engines.
>
> Here's where the special treat for Portland comes in. He indicated that 
> he'd like to visit Evansville sometime and see the engine.  I told him we 
> could do better than that and  I have invited him to come to the Portland 
> show to see the engine.  He is excited to do so and I have also invited 
> him to be our guest at the Thursday evening dinner at the Back 40 
> Junction.  (Dave, put me down for about 6 for the dinner.)
>
> There are not many people remaining who grew up and worked around the 
> factories that built the engines we collect. This will be an excellent 
> opportunity to get to meet and talk to someone who lived that experience. 
> Please make a point to introduce yourselves and fill free to ask him any 
> questions you might have about life around an early 1900's gas engine 
> factory.
>
> To learn more about the company and engines here is a link to my web page 
> about them:
> http://www.herculesengines.com/clarke/index.htm
>
> Thanks.
> Keith
>
>
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