FELLSMERE — The deal is done. The flywheel engine that once generated Fellsmere’s electricity and its ice plant will again call Fellsmere home, though it won’t be until the next Fellsmere Day celebration – April 2014.
“I’m giving my baby away,” said Johnny Perez as he signed the contract with the city, giving the engine to the city once he’s done showing it off for the last season. The 84-year-old has said that he could only continue to haul and run the engine for another year before his legs totally give out on him.
Prior to the signing, a minor change needed to be made, which required Perez to write in the margin.
“You’re going to trust my handwriting?” Perez asked, teasing City Manager Jason Nunemaker.
“I guarantee it’s better than mine,” Nunemaker responded.
The agreement will be passed along to Mayor Susan Adams, who is expected to sign off on the contract, finalizing it.
Nunemaker said the next step will be for the city to find a suitable home for the large, 5-ton 1917 Fairbanks Morse flywheel engine.
He has said the city would be looking for potential grants that could help secure a site or construct a building for the engine.
Where it could be located remains to be determined – there could be property available along the Rails to Trails right of way; there’s space near the Marian Fell Library though the city wants to reserve that space for historic buildings; and there’s a city-owned property on the south side of S. Carolina between Broadway and Myrtle that could be a possibility.
After signing the paperwork, Perez seemed happy with the arrangement.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said of sending the engine back to its home.
In the early 1900s, the City of Fellsmere floated a $10,000 bond to purchase the engine, said Fellsmere historian Clarence “Korky” Korker said, citing articles that ran in the Fellsmere Tribune. When the engine arrived, Mr. Morse himself (for whom the engine was named) set it up.
The city ran the engine until 1925, when a startup electric company known as Florida Power and Light bought it to run the Belle Glade power plant. Later, FP&L sold the engine to a would-be sawmill operation in the early 1950s that went under before it even got started when the railroad company dismantled its rail spur track in the preserve.
The engine sat unused in a shed structure that eventually rotted and fell down around it, according to Perez, who with a friend in the mid-1990s, purchased the engine and worked to restore it to working condition.
Korker tracked down the engine and made contact with Perez, making friends in the process while trying to secure the engine for the City of Fellsmere.
“I really, truly never thought it was going to happen,” Korker said of the engine making its way back to the city. But, “it should come back here. It’s a piece of history spared.”