giving 1929 McCormick deering bay city shovel a new home!!!

i hear you already... why should i care about some large weird looking ancient piece of machinery?

The history behind this big gal is mind boggling!

It was brought over from the states way back in the day (1930s) to help dig and shape most of the roads in and around the Rodney area, highlights include:

1. getting shipped down to Napier to help after the earthquakes

2. spending most the great depression hidden behind a hay shed to save it from being destroyed by men up in arms feeling like it was taking work away from them.

3. going accidentally head to head with a steam train and surviving!!

and tons of other stuff we have barely even started researching!

SO this shovel came up for auction with the rest of Peter Mackenzies estate (who some of you may remember as the owner/curator of the amazing Iron Park) And one of our locals (Tommy Grace) knowing about the old girls history (and having memories of it in the area very early on in his life) gave us a heads up that it was coming up for auction and offered to help us try and get her back where she belongs!

Long story short we don't get a hell of a lot of funding, we have very lucky to have some very generous sponsors who help us keep the doors open day to day. Any big projects like this we need to fundraise for. So we are fundraising to not only buy the machine but to build her a little place of her own on our grounds to keep her in the best shape we can!