-= NMSU PANORAMA - Summer 2005 =- Aggie Whirl: Labor of Love: Alum Restores 1907 Steam Car as Tribute to Former Professor

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Labor of Love: Alum Restores 1907 Steam Car as Tribute to Former Professor

By Ellen Davis

Floyde Adams drives the restored "Black Steamer" in the 2004 Homecoming Parade.

Alumni who attended NMSU from the late 1960s to the early 1990s may remember seeing an unusual steam-powered car in the annual homecoming parades.

Now a new generation of students and alumni will be able to see this relic of a bygone era thanks to the efforts of Floyde Adams '62.

Adams spent the past two years restoring the "Black Steamer," a 1907 steam car that was donated to the university in 1961 by the Miller family of Santa Fe. The car has the engine from a 1907 Stanley Steamer, but the body was rebuilt by alumni George '07 and Charles '06 Miller after the car was ruined in a barn that collapsed. The Miller family used it as a ranch and personal vehicle in the early 1900s.

Photo courtesy NMSU Library Archives and Special Collections

Clifford Tyree '65 drives the steam car belonging to the College of Engineering around campus shortly after its original restoration in the 1960s.

The vehicle was first restored by former mechanical engineering professor Jimmy Fields, who had been raised in a railroad family and had a deep love for old steam engines. Adams agreed to once again restore the vehicle as a tribute to Fields, whom he had as a professor when he was studying mechanical engineering at NMSU.

Although he made his living as a rocket engineer at Sandia Laboratories and later as the owner of his own automotive business in Las Cruces, Adams says he has always been interested in steam. This interest may date to his childhood in Mexico, where a lot of steam-powered trains from the United States ended up.

When he first committed to the restoration project, Adams thought it would only take two months. But it ended up taking two years.

"One of my greatest disappointments is that Jimmy did not leave any instructions on what he did or how to operate the car," says Adams, who now lives in Mimbres, New Mexico. Adams has remedied that by writing a report so that anyone who comes after him will know what he has done to the car.

The restored vehicle made its debut at last year's homecoming parade. Adams drove the car and his son, Bill, served as "fireman." It took second place in the parade.

"Our goal is to take first place next year," Adams says.

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