MARYSVILLE — Members of the Marysville Historical Society were joined by other community members in kicking off the month of May by giving a more-than-a-century-old local historic artifact a more solid foundation for the future, literally.

On May 1, the “steam donkey” at Jennings Park was lifted by a crane truck, so that the two decaying “boom stick” logs it had been sitting on for the past 23 years could be replaced by a pair of concrete-and-rebar skids, each one weighing approximately 6,500 pounds and furnished by Cuz Concrete.

The steam donkey was a type of engine used for logging, and the donkey at Jennings park was built April 10, 1901 by Vulcan Iron Works in Seattle. George S. Stormo owned this steam donkey, and with his father, brothers and cousins, he used it for logging east of Marysville. It was retired in the early 1940s, after which Sigmund D. Stormo donated it to the Marysville Historical Society, which eventually moved it to its current location in 1986.

Steam donkeys operated through a sequence of steps, starting when the boiler drew water from a tank, long since absent on this donkey, and heated the water into steam. From there, the steam was piped into cylinders which pushed a piston and shaft forward, with a rod connecting the shaft to a counter-balanced flywheel. The turning of the flywheel drove the shaft, which turned large gears that themselves turned two drums. The drum closest to the boiler was the haulback drum, while the other drum was the skidding drum. Cables were wrapped around both drums, and the haulback cable ran through a block pulley, which was attached to a tree, with another chain anchoring the steam donkey on its other side to keep it in place.

When a log was set to be pulled out of the woods, one end of a cable or choker chain was wrapped around the log, while the other end was attached between the block and the skidding drum. The steam donkey operator controlled a set of foot and hand levers to rotate the drums, unwinding cable from the haulback drum and winding it onto the skidding drum. From there, the choker chain pulled the log out, so that it was ready to be loaded.

Half a dozen volunteers arrived at Jennings Park at 7:30 a.m. May 1, ready to move the steam donkey’s rotting support logs as soon as the crane hoisted the donkey out of its pen. Because the logs contain no creosote, they were simply placed behind the pen, to decompose and enrich the surrounding soil. From there, Glen Zachary and his Cuz Concrete employees placed the concrete skids, after Ken Cage and other Marysville Historical Society members placed markers to show where the skids should be set.

“These should last a hundred years or more,” Zachary said of the concrete skids. “I love projects like this, where we can be more creative.”

Cage, president of the Marysville Historical Society, first noticed the deterioration of the steam donkey’s support logs this spring, when he visited Jennings Park to help prepare the donkey for the summer season. He expressed his appreciation for the variety of volunteers who pitched in to help give the steam donkey a surer footing, including Cuz Concrete.