In April 2022, Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) applied to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC) for a Historical Marker recognizing The President Pumping Engine. In December 2022, this application was approved, one of 36 across the Commonwealth. These new markers, selected from 91 applications, were added to the more than 2500 familiar blue signs with gold lettering along city streets and country roads and highways throughout Pennsylvania. Since 1946 PHMC’s Historical Markers have chronicled the people, places, and events that have affected the lives of Pennsylvanians over the centuries. The signs feature subjects such as Native Americans and early settlers, government and politics, athletes, entertainers, artists, struggles for freedom and equality, factories and businesses, and many other noteworthy topics. The standard for recognition requires that the nominee (site or person) had both a substantial connection to the state and a significant impact on its times at a statewide or broader level. Local or regional historical significance on its own is not qualifying. The application process includes validation through extensive primary and secondary documentation. As one of two Historical Markers approved in the Lehigh Valley during this cycle, achieving this recognition was an important milestone in our overall efforts to memorialize the story and preserve the existing physical features of The President Pumping Engine.
The President Engine House ruins (Lehigh Co., PA) are the surviving remnant of The President Pumping Engine (1872-1900). The engine was designed by John West, a Cornish émigré who played a significant role in the development of Cornish style pumping engines in America. The President Pumping Engine was the largest single cylinder walking beam engine ever designed and manufactured in the United States and a global engineering landmark that attracting worldwide interest. When the combination of size, equipment weight and power generated are considered, it was the largest and most powerful single cylinder stationary steam engine ever constructed. It was the essential machine necessary to dewater a mine that represented the ore source for over one half of the growing market for zinc products in America. When one of the engine’s walking beams fractured in 1891 and available resources were not able to effectively repair it, all alternative attempts to clear water from the mines failed and the operations were forced to close in 1893. Fabricated in Philadelphia foundries, the engine and pumping equipment were a tribute to the great manufacturing skills of the city known as the “workshop of the world”. An important substory is the contribution of Cornish mining and mechanical expertise as the engine designer, the master building and equipment erectors, and the initial equipment operators were all émigrés from Cornwall, a small county in the United Kingdom that gained outsized prominence in the 19th century for the contribution made by its people to hard rock mining and steam technology throughout the world.