Dunkirk Historical Museum

The railroad heritage the Dunkirk Historical Museum's Brooks-ALCO display commemorates begins in 1869, when the New York and Erie moved its shop facilities from Dunkirk to Buffalo and the city lost its largest employer. Horatio G. Brooks — the Erie's former chief engineer, who had been at the controls of the first train into Dunkirk in 1851 — came to the rescue, leasing the idled shops and opening Brooks Locomotive Works that November; its first engine was finished the following month for its first customer, the NY&E. Brooks grew into the city's dominant employer of the late nineteenth century, building nearly 4,000 steam locomotives for most major railroads of the era, taking Best in Show honors at an 1883 Chicago exhibition, and earning headlines in 1895 when a Brooks-built engine hit 92.3 mph on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, then a world speed record for rail vehicles. The firm merged into the American Locomotive Company in 1901, and the Dunkirk plant turned out ALCO-Brooks locomotives until 1934 before shifting to heat exchangers and pressure vessels; ALCO finally closed the facility in 1962, ending nearly a century of heavy industry on the site.