SEQUIM — Pat Farrell loves to let off steam and does so in a big way.
His 1915 Stanley Steamer passenger mountain wagon will return Friday to Port Angeles for the first time in nearly 100 years as the featured antique vehicle in this year’s Heritage Days celebration.
The Stanley will be among several other well-loved and maintained Horseless Carriage Club of America cars exhibited on the lot at First and Laurel streets downtown from about 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Friday, the first day of the three-day Heritage Days festival.
Horseless Carriage Club members plan to take out their cars — which reach top speeds of between 20 and 30 mph — to tour Sequim and the surrounding area today before heading to Port Angeles on Friday for the grand show of pre-1916 one- and two-cylinder horseless carriages.
The 12-seat predecessor of modern-day buses and the largest of the Stanley Steamer line is powered by any kind of liquid fuel that heats the boiler, producing steam that powers its engine and drive train, unlike gasoline-powered internal combustion engines.
“It was used to haul guests to resorts like Sol Duc Hot Springs,” said Farrell of Sedro-Woolley.
“In the winter, a guy had to ride on the hood with a snow shovel to keep snow away from the burner,” he said Wednesday, speaking in the parking lot of the Quality Inn in West Sequim, where Horseless Carriage Club members gathered first to check out the shiny, gleaming, ancient competition.
Farrell’s red steamer has the largest engine, at 30 horsepower, that Stanley ever produced.
Stanley set a land speed record in 1906 with such an engine — 127.6 mph.
It moves silently, save for the whistling blast of steam, similar to a locomotive engine on rails, that can be released.
A low, eerie whistling sound can occasionally be heard coming from the burner.
Farrell, who bought the Stanley in 1998, said the vehicle would catch a ferry across Lake Crescent, then take the rutted dirt roads 10 miles southwest to the hot springs.
The steamer gets 1 mile per gallon on its water from a 50-gallon boiler and 10 miles per gallon on its fuel.
That gives it a 50-mile range between water stops.
Dunlap Towing and Barge Co., which has a Port Angeles Harbor log towing operation, had a standing offer for years to buy Stanleys dead or alive delivered to their docks, where the engines were pulled to power deck winches and the car bodies were junked.
There are only about 30 Stanley mountain wagons left in the world, Farrell said, most of them in the U.S.
Because his is so rare, Farrell said he would take no less than $200,000 for it.
The car has been in Farrell’s family since his father bought it in 1922 from the original owner.
Nearby, Sequim’s Nick Dante showed off his 1909 REO, so named from the initials of its inventor, Ransom Eli Olds, who created the first assembly line in 1901 after opening the Olds Motor Vehicle Co., replacing his father’s shop, and the Olds Gasoline Engine Works.
Olds was the first person to use the assembly line in the automotive industry, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Henry Ford improved on his idea with conveyor belts, according to www.historyofinformation.com.
Olds’ vehicle company sputtered, but the engine company succeeded.
In 1899, Olds moved to Detroit, formed the Olds Motor Works and designed and produced the popular, affordable Oldsmobile.
In 1915, after the auto market slowed to a crawl, Olds formed the Ideal Power Lawn Mower Co. to manufacture his newest invention.
“I’ve always been interested in old cars,” said Dante, who has owned his second REO since 1968.
“I’m a collector.”
He also owns a 1915 Ford Model T.
One of a few classic cars owners down at the Quality Inn was Dennis Hood of Carlsborg, who proudly stood by his 1908 Model S Ford, the horseless carriage that predated the Model T.
“I found it in a barn in Iowa in 1957,” Hood said, adding that he did not buy it until 1989 after a long wait for the owner to sell it.
He took the Model S back to Dearborn, Mich., in 2003, where it was part of Ford’s centennial celebration.
There are only maybe a dozen Model S Fords left, Hood said, “that run,” he quickly added.
For more information about the exhibition, phone the Clallam County Historical Society’s office at 360-452-2662.
For a complete list of Heritage Days events, visit the Port Angeles Downtown Association’s website at www.portangelesdowntown.com or phone 360-457-9614.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
