Joe Linsmeier, left, and Gary Klatt of Plutchak Crane Rental Inc., based in Menominee, make preparations for the historic steam locomotive Yankee to be relocated from the Michigan Iron Industry Museum to Pennsylvania. The locomotive is set to be restored in Pennsylvania before being returned to the museum. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

NEGAUNEE — A historic locomotive has begun a new journey.

The Yankee on Thursday was loaded for transport from the Michigan Iron Industry Museum to Pennsylvania for restoration, a trip of about 900 miles.

The rare locomotive was built in the 1860s. Restoration will involve combining the practices of conservation as well as selective restoration and replications to return the Yankee to its rightful place as a subject of interest.

Museum historian Barry James watched on Thursday as the loading process began.

“We’re looking at restoring it to the way it looked originally from the 1860s,” James said. “It will not be operational, but it will be conserved and preserved.”

He noted the museum has 4,000 square feet set aside inside the facility to house the Yankee.

“It’s an extremely rare artifact,” James said.

James said B.R. Howard Conservation, based in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, will handle the restoration.

The company’s website at brhoward.com noted it specializes in art conservation and architectural preservation.

Such projects can’t always be completed in quick fashion, and James said it will take at least a year to fabricate the parts and restore the original parts.

“It’s still about 60% intact but they’re going to need to do some research and rebuild parts that are missing,” James said.

The museum had received $120,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services to restore the Yankee, one of the oldest surviving steam locomotives in the United States. The restoration project will cost $200,000, with matching money coming from the Friends of the Michigan Iron Industry Museum.

According to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, the Yankee was manufactured by Alexander Chaplin and Co. of Glasgow, Scotland, between 1862 and 1868.

The Yankee is red in color, made from cast and wrought iron, steel and a mix of soft and hardwoods. It is just over 12 feet long and about 9 feet high, weighing an estimated 8,000 pounds.

With the steel rail supports on which it was sitting, the total weight of the locomotive, when lifted by a crane onto a flatbed truck on Thursday, was just over 11,000 pounds, the DNR reported.

The transfer from its display spot, under some white pines on the museum grounds, to the truck took only a few minutes.

“The Yankee steam locomotive is in poor and unstable condition having actively corroding iron, fungal decay of all wooden components, and actively flaking paint in areas which still retain paint,” according to a B.R. Howard Conservation report on the rare relic.

The Yankee is believed to be one of only three surviving Chaplin locomotives in the world.

The DNR said the Yankee and its twin, the John Bull, signaled the first technological change for Upper Peninsula iron mines — the coming of steam. Until locomotives began hauling ore at the Jackson Mine in Negaunee around 1868, humans or animal power performed all the work.

The Yankee hauled six to 10 small, four-wheel ore cars, each capable of carrying five or six tons of ore, with a maximum speed of 10 mph. The locomotive signaled the coming of the Industrial Revolution to the Lake Superior iron mines, which led the United States in production from the 1850s into the 1890s.

After being decommissioned, the Yankee was placed outside of the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company offices in Ishpeming for decades before it was donated to the state of Michigan on July 31, 1986.

The museum, located off U.S. 41 in Negaunee Township, is part of the Michigan History Center, an agency within the DNR. For more information on the Yankee, email James at JamesB@Michigan.gov or by phone at 906-475-7857.