Bulldozers. Cranes. Crushers. Dump trucks.
Equipment is seemingly everywhere at Lakeside Sand & Gravel, a family-owned operation in Mantua, Ohio.
Only a handful of the machines on site are the kind you’ll typically find operating in a modern-day sand or gravel pit, though. The majority are antiques Lakeside co-owners Larry and Ron Kotkowski acquired over the years for their ever-growing collection of historic construction equipment.
A walk through Lakeside’s garages and surrounding property is, in a sense, like visiting a construction equipment museum. Every machine on site has a unique story in terms of how it was used, acquired and, in a number of cases, brought back to life.
Some of those stories are as fascinating as the very sight of construction equipment that hasn’t operated in 50-plus years.
Take a Bucyrus-Erie 71-B shovel Lakeside recently acquired from a construction company that went out of business 30-some years ago in Youngstown, Ohio. After the company went out of business, Ron says a son kept that company’s old equipment and restored as much of it as he could over the years.
The son died before the 71-B was fully put back together, though. The Kotkowskis eventually purchased the shovel, and they finished the restoration work that the son started with the help of Lakeside’s employees and volunteers, who are instrumental in the restoration of all of the company’s antique equipment.
Now, Larry and Ron say their 71-B shovel is the only operational one they know of.
“A lot of times what happens is equipment sits around forever and it gets scrapped,” Ron says. “Really, we’re just trying to beat the scrap guys.”
The Kotkowskis have ventured outside their construction-equipment-collecting niche on occasion, as well. The brothers have a number of early 20th century automobiles in their collection. A 1913 Buick Model 25 touring car is among them.
According to Ron, the Buick hadn’t run since 1921. But a group at Lakeside got it to run after 94 years between engine starts.
The hunt for antique equipment is also an exhilarating part of the collecting experience. Larry and Ron say they’ve been collecting since the 1990s, when they acquired what they call their “first major piece” in a 1949 REO truck. But, as Larry and Ron accumulated equipment over the years, word spread about their adventures.
Now, people bring antique-equipment-purchasing opportunities directly to them. And, on occasion, generous people donate equipment because they know the Kotkowskis will preserve it.
They’ll also share it with others, exhibiting equipment at local festivals and at Lakeside’s annual open house and antique construction equipment show. Lakeside’s next show, which is free and open to the public, is in April 2016.