DELPHI — Massive furnaces that were once an integral part of the city's economy haven't been used in about a century, but a group of volunteers are working to preserve their legacy for generations to come.
The Wabash & Erie Canal Association restores and promotes Delphi's and the surrounding area's history. A new interactive exhibit is coming to its Interpretive Center & Museum that aims to show users how a lime kiln works. Several of these large ovens towered over Delphi to turn one of the area's abundant resources into the main ingredient for building materials.
The Monday-Wednesday-Friday Crew, a group of volunteers who work to benefit the association, has been working on the scaled-down lime kiln replica for about a month now.
Dan McCain, president of the Wabash & Erie Canal Association and member of the crew, said about seven volunteers have been gathering just about every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning lately to see the project through.
At about a 1:10 scale, the finished product will represent an industry that thrived in the area from the 1850s to 1917.
A popular way of transferring loads of limestone into kilns was via a crane-like device called a gin pole. The MWF Crew created one for the exhibit using PVC pipe, thin rope, a winch and a pulley. Using hand cranks, an operator will be able to lower a rope holding a magnet onto an iron-embedded ball that represents a load of limestone. They'll then be able to hoist the ball up toward the model kiln, where they'll drop it into the circular channel atop a wooden box with two half-circle chambers on opposite sides representing a stone furnace.
In reality, these brick channels would tower about 50 feet high and be about 12 feet in diameter. The furnaces were fueled with wood to heat the limestone loads that were regularly packed on top of one another, resulting in a continuous, slow descent. Moisture was driven out of the limestone as it crept by the intense heat source, altering its chemical properties and causing it to crumble into a fine powder on the bottom. In Delphi, the resulting product was shipped from the canal and eventually via rail to be used in the creation of construction products like plaster, mortar and whitewash.
For museum visitors, this conclusion will be illustrated by the ball rolling down a ramp out the bottom of the replica kiln.
McCain said in reality, it would take about a week for a load of limestone to make it all the way through.
"This would run 24/7/365 for probably more than a year before they'd finally shut it down," he said, adding that the interior bricks that had disintegrated from all the heat would need to be replaced before kilning could continue.
About a half-dozen families in north Delphi with a total of 22 kilns produced up to 500,000 bushels of burned lime a year, McCain said.
His own ancestors were a part of the industry, he added, going on to recall fond memories of playing on the remains of their kilns as a child. Charles Harley, McCain's great-grandfather, operated one through 1874. McCain said Harley shipped his product from the canal before the following generation took advantage of the rail sprouting up in the area, as it was faster and could be used throughout the entire year.
The new exhibit is not the first kiln-related project the MWF Crew has taken on. In 2008, they embarked on a two-year endeavor to save a real one from demolition by disassembling and moving most of it from Milkhouse and Carrollton roads before reassembling it two blocks north of Canal Park.
While new technologies replaced kilns of this kind in around 1917, McCain said projects like these help the understanding of their importance live on.
"It's a story that tells a lot about Delphi's industry," he said.
The plans that made the exhibit possible were drafted by Len Mysliwiec, owner of Fort Wayne-based Lifespan Design Studio.
"I call him a big, overgrown kid," McCain said. "He has an imagination far beyond what you and I may have. He knows how to get to the minds of children and adults the kind of interaction that makes for exciting discovery."
Mysliwiec's company designed all of the museum's exhibits.
He said there are two kinds of museum visitors — those who are drawn to the information provided and those looking to have an experience.
Children almost always fall into the latter, he continued.
Mysliwiec said computer exhibits used to be a big draw for younger museum visitors, until that kind of technology became prevalent in their lives.
"What we found is mechanical experiences are new to them," he said. "They grab something, push something, pull something and break away from normal, everyday experiences."
This philosophy was applied to the lime kiln exhibit.
"So I thought, how do we get their attention?" Mysliwiec said. "Cranes are always fun. Kids like picking up stuff and dropping stuff."
The goal is that this interaction will lead to a curiosity that can only be satisfied by a knowledge of the history behind it, Mysliwiec continued.
This interpretive nature of the museum sets it apart from others by showing visitors the principles behind the exhibits rather than just putting things on display, McCain said.
"I think the reason why the public and especially the children really enjoy our museum is that we don't have a lot of signs saying don't touch, don't do this, don't do that," he said. "Instead, we're asking them to try out things and work with it."
He's looking forward to members of Delphi's future lining up to operate the replica of the tool that played such a significant role for members of the city's past.
"It's part of our heritage and we're glad to be able to show it off," McCain said.