Rockport residents try to find a place for history-laden crane

A group is trying to keep a 100-year-old crane in Rockport after it is moved to accommodate expansion of the commuter rail station. (John Blanding/Globe Staff)

ROCKPORT - When granite drove the economy here many decades ago, the crane worked overtime, lifting countless chunks of rock from horse-drawn carts onto trains. The shipments were sent all over the country, and some of the granite became cobblestone in New York City.

During World War II, the crane unloaded tons of bulk iron from trains, material that would be pounded by a local tool maker into components for war machines.

For more than 100 years, it stayed in more or less the same spot, near the railroad tracks, eventually doing little but gathering rust as a forgotten relic of the 19th century. As the years passed, so did the memory of what the machine did.

But now there is a renewed focus on the crane, brought about by talk that it is to be moved to make way for a commuter rail expansion project. The project calls for a parking lot in the area the crane currently occupies. Several residents have now made it their mission to make sure the crane stays in town.

Peter Beacham, chairman of the Rock port Economic Development Committee, said he was bewildered to learn that plans had been made to move the crane to Lynn, or Saugus, or some other town or city. He said he learned of those plans while attending a meeting last October with the Board of Selectmen, the MBTA, and the committee working on the renovation of the station. Limited space in Rockport led officials to consider moving the crane out of town.

"That's when it hit the fan," Beacham said yesterday.

Since that time, Beacham has written letters to the town administrator, MBTA officials, and other people connected to the project.

Michael Racicot, the town administrator, stood in his office yesterday and looked at blueprints of the proposed station. "Originally, nobody said anything, so the plan went on. Then after that meeting, that's when there was an uproar."

The MBTA had been working on the expansion for years, said Racicot. He is receptive to the idea of keeping the crane in town, he added.

"I don't think people were aware of it at all at first," Beacham said. "Most didn't know what it was used for. But now, [learning about it is] getting fun and interesting."

He said other officials he has contacted all seem receptive to keeping the crane in town. Now the task is to find a location. He's made suggestions, he said, including Granite Pier, or somewhere along the shoreline, or the Halibut Point State Park.

"If the MBTA was going to pay the costs of moving it to Saugus, then I think they would love the idea of keeping it here because the shorter move would cost much less."

The $10 million expansion, to be paid by federal and state transportation funds, includes handicap-accessible ramps, a platform, and covered storage for MBTA cars that are housed at the station overnight. The station is the last stop on the line that runs into Boston.

Robert Burbank, 70, chairman of the Public Works board, said of the crane, "It has a lot of history. I remember as a child seeing the Cape Ann Tool company bring in steel bars using that crane. "It deserves to be here."