McCourtney & sons
movers of houses, churches, grain elevators, barns,
a ferry boat, and more
Photo 44.
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McCourtney & sons
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You name it, Charlie McCourtney and his three sons moved it. Houses, churches, grain elevators, barns, and even, by report, a ferry boat built by Sam Roberts of Brownville, Nebraska, which Charlie put into the water for him. Enjoy these fantastic and unusual photographs.
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The Spirit of Brownville, put into the Missouri River by McCourtneys after Sam Roberts built it. Photo from Sharla Sitzman Cerra, a Roberts granddaughter.
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charlie mccourtney's own house
Photo 73, shows the side porch on the house. This is Charlie McCourtney's own house, moved from Lewiston to a location west of town. The steam engines went 3 miles an hour, according to his granddaughter Delores McCourtney Penkava. The house s still there.
grain elevator
January 1921. "Grain elevator, Pawnee City, Nebraska, moved over a hilly mile in
subzero weather." Photo 584.
crossing the nemahaPhoto 583. Moving a house over the Nemaha river south of Falls City; McCourtney made the bridge. He "cabled" it down one bank and up the other. It is said that there were many people who wanted to see the house cross the bridge. McCourtney finished the bridge one afternoon and told people that he would be moving the house in the morning. However, he moved it that night as he did not want bystanders getting in the way.
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the daniels' house south of table rock
Photo 73. Ray Daniels lives in this home, and has since before it was moved when he was seven years old.
a 32' x 52' church moved with "no cracks, no sags."
McCourtney moves a church. According to a note on the back of the photo, the church was "32 foot x 52 foot, loaded in 3 days, moved 6.5 miles over hills
and bridges in one day. Mack and Ford trucks. Set on 14 foot basement near
Falls city NE. Used 24 steel wheels 12” x 24”, no cracks, no sags.” Photo 583.
jennie english's house, near sabetha
On the back is an annotation: "Mrs. Jennie Ernigh. House on [road 5 miles from? ] Sabetha, KS. 8 foot 4” up. This photograph is owned by daughter of Bruce McCourtney. Photo 563.
moving st. joseph's parsonage in auburn. march 19, 1933.
Photo 3144
crossing the bridge when you come to it - 8 miles sw of auburn
Photo 3145, February 19, 1932. "8 miles SW of Auburn."
same house - sw of auburn
Photo 3146
near mayberry
Crossing Turkey Creek 3 miles northwest of Mayberry, on May 12, 1927. Residence of F. H. Bartels. When posted on Facebook, James Wright believed it was the house as the one he grew up in. If it is that house, his parents, Dean and Opal Wright, had bought it from the Bartels in the 1940s.
danger!
After an explosion of a Minneapolis steam engine . The back of the photo is annotated, “oiler explosion, return flu, Minneapolis, Burr, Neb. 1920, 1 man killed.” Photo 551.
some of the engines close up
McCourtney steam engines built in 1916 and 1914. According to an annotation on the back of the photo, the one on the left is a 50 HP case, No. 33661, built in 1916. The one on the right is a "16-48 HP Russell, No. 15546, built in 1914." Photo 72; the print date of the photo is 1965.
Labeled as "Bruce McCourtney and his little steam engine." Photo 588.
Taken about 1941, "18 H.P. Aultman-Taylor steam engine" now in a museum near 0Denver, Colorado. Photo 74.
