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M-2942 - Pat Scott's Story

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Story and Photos provided by Pat Scott; originally written in April 2000

Wrapping insulators to ship can be tedious at times, so I usually find myself breaking the monotony by reading stories or cartoons when something interesting catches my eye on one of the newspapers with which I am wrapping. One particular day, a photograph caught my eye. It was a photo of the Hwy. 115 bridge in St. Charles, MO, and the accompanying article talked of its planned demise. A contractor was hired to demolish this old structure, which at the time in 1997 had seen 4 years pass since the last automobile traversed the Missouri River on its rickety deck. I knew it would be torn down sometime, but would it be a year, 10 years, 50 years?

Well, I'd had my eye on that bridge for a good number of years before I saw the article, because atop it was a 3-phase 34.5 kV Union Electric line, insulated with some funny-looking porcelain multipart insulators. Obviously, these insulators were out of the question. It is generally not wise to touch a 34.5 KV line-- that is, unless you are trying to put on your own personal fireworks display, with you as the centerpiece. I'm not into that. I had not visited the bridge in a long while, so I thought it would be a good idea to drive by, just to see what was going on.

Upon my arrival, I noticed that the wires had been pulled from the bridge and all those insulators were still atop the bridge. Wow, and they were neat-looking, too. I still could find no photo of them to tell me what they were.

A few months later, the article for which I was waiting appeared in the paper. This article told of the planned timetable of demolition, and gave the name of the company responsible for the job. When the day finally came for the first of 4 sections to be blown up, I was there. After waiting for the dust to settle, so to speak, I drove around, asked around, and finally found the individual who was overseeing the whole job. I inquired as to what the fate of this porcelain would be, knowing that this company was not interested in salvaging it. He promised he could save me one, but you know how those promises go most of the time. I had just found out that morning that these were Lapps, because a few of them from the bridge made landfall, which of course was not a very pretty sight. There was one broken piece that said Lapp. There were also 12 sets of Ohio Brass suspensions on this part of the bridge, but only one disk out of the 48 survived. I figured I'd take that later in the evening when the workers left. I did not have a Lapp yet, so I wanted some kind of insulator souvenir from the bridge in case the Lapp never came my way. I did make it back that evening, but broke the damn suspension while taking it off its bracket. What a numbskull. One of 48 survived, then I break it taking it off! That was Murphy's Law.

Anyway, a couple of days later, I found the foreman again, and sure as heck, he did save me one. He took me to the shed in which it was stored, and I then found out that he had saved all of them. I asked about another, and he told me not to get greedy, he promised he would save one for me, and one was all I was getting. Hmmm.

The next week, I got an idea. For one, I had called Rick Soller to see what these were. They were listed in the porcelain price guide, but had no picture. It was the Lapp M-2942, and I learned that the only place these were known to exist was this bridge. With that, I decided there was no way I could let those others go. I wanted to preserve as many as possible so that others could enjoy them, and I just couldn't fathom the idea of them all being trashed. It was up to me, and I had to come through. I went back and found the foreman again, and knowing that he was seeing dollar signs in these, I asked if I could buy them instead. He said he would think about it, for me to shoot him a price, and he would call me back. We finally arrived at a price, and I bought 12 of them. A lot of the ones in the shed were cracked, so I left those, and there were still some on the remaining 2 sections of the bridge. I called Rick back to see if he wanted one, and from there I was told to call a few people that would probably be interested. Soon, I guess word got out, and people started calling me.

Those 12 were quickly gone, so two weeks later when the last half of the bridge came down, I bought 10 more. This time, I also left the cracked ones, but noticed that 2 of them were different. All of the others so far had LAPP inkstamp markings. These 2 had an incuse mark with the 1926 code on the Lapp symbol. All others said 1927. Though both were cracked, I thought I'd better get them, because they were the only two out of all of them that came down. I had 10 more to get rid of, but again, they sold themselves. I had a few people who were already on the list, and the remaining ones soon sold and traded at shows.

That is what I call success. After all, I was able to preserve a group of insulators that would have otherwise been destroyed. Now there are many multipart and Lapp collectors who have a nice piece in their collection. I know of two people who swear by these as being their favorite insulators. It's certainly one of mine. Heck, for that matter, that foreman probably bought himself a hefty Christmas present that year with the price that I had to pay him for all 23 insulators. My only regret about the whole experience was that at one point, I had about 15 of them on a white blanket in the basement, and I should have taken a photo of the one and only time they were all in one place. Oh well, at least I know they all went to good homes.

Be persistant, ask around, and be prepared to pay, do favors, or buy beer in return. Persistance like this is a great way to ensure that good insulators make their way to where they belong... in the hobby, not at the bottom of a landfill or holding up someone's derelict vehicle in their front yard. If you know where something good is, check up on it, and if you ever see it coming down, do what you can to get it.