BRADLEY, Maine — More than 120 years ago, Alvin Lombard had an idea to speed up lumbering in the Maine woods.
In the process, the Waterville inventor created a new piece of equipment that would change the world of construction and the world of warfare.
Lombard's invention was a machine driven by an endless track, the kind now used on everything from bulldozers to tanks.
In 1900, he revolutionized woodwork with the Lombard Log Hauler, a set of tracks mounted to a steam locomotive with skis on front.
On a snowy March morning, Herb Crosby of the Maine Forest and Logging Museum in Bradley, proudly pointed to two of those steam-powered machines and said they were remarkable.
"These machines could pull 300 tons of logs. They'd be stacked high and chained on," he said.
Crosby is a mechanical engineer and retired professor of engineering. He said Lombard was a mechanical genius.
"Oh, he certainly was, even though he didn't go to school beyond a one-room schoolhouse."
Crosby and fellow engineer Terry Harper are passionate about the achievements of Lombard and his machines and take pride in keeping four of them in running order.
"Other people had tried ideas like this but could never make them work," Crosby said. "I think what made Alvin Lombard special was perseverance. He kept at it [ and] found a better way. He would look at it, think about it, and come up with a better way to make it work."
Terry Harper compared Lombard to the Wright Brothers and other inventors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
"Average people came from farms, from industry, and they had little education, [but] they could visualize the problem and visualize the solution," Harper said.
And he added Lombard was the leader among a family of inventors.
"Very smart, very smart. The number of patents they held was amazing. Between Alvin, Nathaniel, and Samuel, they hold dozens of patents."
Harper and Crosby said Lombard built 82 of the steam-powered haulers but in 1914 began building a gasoline-powered version. Those became even more successful, said Harper, who noted that several hundred were built before the company ceased production in 1936.
The museum only operates the steam log haulers in summer because of the risk of the water freezing in the pipes in winter. They showed off one of their two gas-powered Lombards, a big, green machine with wheels on front and treads on the back. It was built in 1935 to be a snowplow in Waterville.
On a snowy forest road, Harper handled the driving as if it were second nature and said the machine is fun to drive.
"Oh my gosh, yes. It's the most fun you can have at 5 miles an hour," Harper laughed.
The machines are the museum's pride, along with the hand-crafted, water-powered sawmill — thought to be the only one still working in the state.
While everyone is familiar with the modern version of Lombard's invention, they said that few people, even in Maine, know his name.
That, they said, should change.
"Its made in Maine, conceived in Maine, used in Maine, an amazing machine," Harper said.
And in the forest in Bradley, Lombard's genius is still very much alive.