Gabe Brooks 1930's shop in Scottsdale, AZ

Glenn Brooks

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
H-M Supporter Gold Member
Joined
Nov 14, 2014
Messages
851
Stopped by the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale this week to ride their 15" gauge miniature train and 'discovered' this fantastic 12' x 12' square machine shop preserved in their small RR museum. Seems to me this is the most perfectly designed one man shop I've ever seen. And yes, it is 144 sq feet - on the outside of the building. I stepped off the dimensions - 4 long paces each side. (Correction - actually the shop is 3 x 4 paces, so 10' x12' or just under 120 sq feet interior dimension! A masterpiece of organization)

'Gabe' Brooks was an early day 'rancher' around the Scottsdale area, settling just east of Phoenix in 1917. He put this shop together around 1930. He was a prolific live steamer and also used the equipment to support his water well drilling business. Following his passing in the late 1980's a benefactor eventually preserved his shop building and equipment and had it moved and donated to the McCormic RR park in Scottsdale - where it is displayed today. Apparently the Scottsdale Live Steamers assisted in maintaining the shop for many years. Today the City of Scottsdale owns and operates the park, museum, on site carousel, and
Stillman Ranch's 15" ga railroad.

BTW, most all the equipment runs off a functioning overhead belt drive system. A huge 18" diameter electric motor is mounted up in the rafters to the right of the pictures and powers the overhead drive system.

The electric lamps are hung with weights on pulleys mounted in the rafters. Need more light on your work? Just reach up and pull the light shade down. The shade is hung from a pulley and A little 2 or 3 pound weight on the other end of the pulley slides up and down and holds the lampshade wherever you place it.

The little 12" power hacksaw and shop made 1" diameter vertical cutter have their own small motor driven electric motors? Durn modernization. What's the world coming to with this miserable new junk coming on the market...

Photos are from left to right, around the shop, looking in from the door.

The lathe is a South Bend 11" or 12" -couldn't quite read the tag on the end. The drill press is a 10" camelback, with spare drills placed on holders in the back.

Man, this has everything, even a drafting table and 8' workbench- and plenty of room to walk around. I gotta down size when I get home!

Glenn

IMG_1362.JPG IMG_1344.JPG IMG_1354.JPG IMG_1347.JPG IMG_1352.JPG IMG_1351.JPG IMG_1350.JPG IMG_1358.JPG IMG_1348.JPG IMG_1360.JPG
 
Last edited:
And like many old time machinists, he/she likely did great work!!

Daryl
MN
 
Love it. Thanks for posting. Mike
 
Stopped by again this morning to take another look and capture a few extra photos I somehow missed the first time around. The shop is actually smaller than I first thought, 10' x12' long. So 120 sq feet. Not 144 I stated in my first post. Had to step it off twice to believe it!

Here is a closeup view of Gabe's counterbalanced light shade. Notice the closeline cord running up to a pulley in the rafters, thence back down to a weighted lead weight. Way cool.

Also, shows his overhead belt drive system in more detail...

IMG_1425.JPG

Glenn
 
Very cool. I may be taking a trip to Scottsdale in June. Sounds like a great place to visit. Thanks for sharing.
 
Stopped by the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale this week to ride their 15" gauge miniature train and 'discovered' this fantastic 12' x 12' square machine shop preserved in their small RR museum. Seems to me this is the most perfectly designed one man shop I've ever seen. And yes, it is 144 sq feet - on the outside of the building. I stepped off the dimensions - 4 long paces each side. (Correction - actually the shop is 3 x 4 paces, so 10' x12' or just under 120 sq feet interior dimension! A masterpiece of organization)

'Gabe' Brooks was an early day 'rancher' around the Scottsdale area, settling just east of Phoenix in 1917. He put this shop together around 1930. He was a prolific live steamer and also used the equipment to support his water well drilling business. Following his passing in the late 1980's a benefactor eventually preserved his shop building and equipment and had it moved and donated to the McCormic RR park in Scottsdale - where it is displayed today. Apparently the Scottsdale Live Steamers assisted in maintaining the shop for many years. Today the City of Scottsdale owns and operates the park, museum, on site carousel, and
Stillman Ranch's 15" ga railroad.

BTW, most all the equipment runs off a functioning overhead belt drive system. A huge 18" diameter electric motor is mounted up in the rafters to the right of the pictures and powers the overhead drive system.

The electric lamps are hung with weights on pulleys mounted in the rafters. Need more light on your work? Just reach up and pull the light shade down. The shade is hung from a pulley and A little 2 or 3 pound weight on the other end of the pulley slides up and down and holds the lampshade wherever you place it.

The little 12" power hacksaw and shop made 1" diameter vertical cutter have their own small motor driven electric motors? Durn modernization. What's the world coming to with this miserable new junk coming on the market...

Photos are from left to right, around the shop, looking in from the door.

The lathe is a South Bend 11" or 12" -couldn't quite read the tag on the end. The drill press is a 10" camelback, with spare drills placed on holders in the back.

Man, this has everything, even a drafting table and 8' workbench- and plenty of room to walk around. I gotta down size when I get home!

Glenn

View attachment 229111 View attachment 229112 View attachment 229113 View attachment 229114 View attachment 229115 View attachment 229116 View attachment 229117 View attachment 229118 View attachment 229119 View attachment 229120

Very nice, thx for postig.
 
UR Welcome! Yep, it's a fascinating use of space - and apparently the machinery is Brooks' original equipment. The City of Scottsdale has done a great job of maintaining and supporting the park. With 46" inches of rain in Seattle thus far, and more on its way tomorrow, I still pine away for another chance to sit on the bench outside the Park's old, renovated railway station eating hand made ice cream and drinking coffee under the warm sunny skies, just outside the machine shop. The live steam RR and the Park's 15" ga RR are fun to visit also - just across the lawn.

Glenn
 
Any relation there Glenn? At first I thought it might be an ancestor..
M
ps They actually let people in there? I would think they'd be worried about petty theft, liability, etc.
 
Last edited:
Looking at the machines in the museum reminds me of when I was told how they reversed the rotation. Huh,,,what? Unfortunately the modification on my old lathe doesn't allow me to do the same, so I'm left with always going forward.
 
Back
Top