The Steam Shovel in the Stadium

When I was a small kid, one of my favorite books was Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, so you might understand my fondness for old photographs of steam shovels. This one is digging at the site of a stadium or horse racing track.

The writing on the side of the crane appears to read "The Orchard Co. Marion Ohio" (Orchard is questionable, but the photo's resolution isn't good enough to say for sure). There is no facility that looks like this currently in Marion. Any ideas where this might be?

History Mystery Saturday: What Are They Building?

I find this photograph to be very intriguing. Construction techniques and civil engineering have come so far in the modern era that it's fun to look at how things used to be. But beyond the fascinating indivudual elements in this photo is the question of what is actually being built? If you have a thought, please comment below!

First off, the final shape of the construction seems to be cylindrical, as can be seen behind the lower portion of the structure. This would suggest a silo. However, the grates at the lower left suggest that these might be waterways, and that combined with the earthmoving going on in the left background suggests to me that this might be one of the core parts of a dam being built before the actual dam is built around it.

Below, since all the heavy equipment in the day was steam powered, cartfuls of coal were needed to stoke the fires. In the background of this crop appears to be a steam-powered concrete mixer.

From the output of the mixer, three cement carts can be seen sitting on a make-shift bridge leading to the project.

A large steam shovel - looking more like a building than a piece of movable equipment - works at digging.