An unusual outboard motor has found its way home after being submerged for over seventy years in a northern Wisconsin lake. The motor, a shallow water design Caille, was owned by resort owner and fishing guide Harry Jones, who used it to search the creeks for minnows, and for shallow-water fishing on Pickerel Lake near Eagle River, where he owned the Pickerel Lake Lodge resort.
The “kicker” style outboard was manufactured by the Caille Perfection Motor Company of Detroit, from 1917 to 1931. They produced two models, the Liberty single, and the Liberty twin.
Jones owned the two-horsepower, single-cylinder version. However, in 1928 he loaned the motor to a resort guest for a fishing trip. During the day the motor apparently was loosened from the boat by vibrations, and fell overboard. Not sure of the motor’s exact location, Jones and some friends dragged the bottom of the lake for days, hoping to snag the Caille. His two teenage daughters, Shirley and Dorothy, also joined the search conducting diving expeditions in an area they thought might be the location of the motor.
All the search efforts were to no avail, and a few years later the family sold their Pickerel Lake resort and moved to a new resort near Mercer, Wisconsin.
Jones remained a resort owner for thirty years, and continued as a northwoods guide until his death in 1980. The two daughters who had helped search for the engine maintained their northern Wisconsin ties, as Shirley remained in the Mercer area and Dorothy later moved back to Mercer. But it was only recently that the unique little outboard re-entered their lives.
dorothy (Jones) uthe shows the unique outboard engine that was owned by her father in 1924.
During the summer of 2000, a fisherman in search of muskeys on Pickerel Lake accidentally snagged the engine and pulled it to shore. Finding his discovery of little interest, the fisherman hauled the old engine to the nearby town landfill, and had it not been for the curiousity of landfill custodian Emil Ivaska, the engine may have been buried and lost forever. Ivaska salvaged the strange-looking outboard and took it to his home, not knowing that a Jones family member would eventually discover the Caille and reveal its history.
Jones’ daughter Dorothy Uthe had lived in the Eagle River area for years, and had returned to visit old friends one day when she stopped to visit the Ivaska family.
Seeing the old engine, she asked the landfill custodian where he had obtained it; when Ivaska explained he had received it from a Pickerel Lake fisherman, Dorothy knew it was the long lost Caille.
Ivaska’s son Tony also learned the story of the outboard. After savoring the memories of an experience more than seven decades old, the family placed the outboard on display at the Historical Society Museum in Mercer.
The Caille Company, unable to recover from the affects of the Depression, discontinued outboard production and went out of business in 1935. However, some of its models remain as valued possessions of antique outboard collectors. And one little motor has found its way back “home” for everyone to see at the old Mercer Depot Museum in northern Wisconsin. For hours and locations to the Mercer Depot Museum, visit https://mercercc.com/directory/listing/mercer-depot-museum.
Written by Larry Jorgensen and originally printed in the Fall 2013 issue of ACBS Rudder.
Wonderful story! Minor correction: the top photo isn’t a Caille from the ‘30s, but rather a Cowell lapstrake outboard built in Erie, PA from the ‘50s. More here: http://historywithheart.com
Fantastic story, thanks for sharing!
Wow, what a story. So glad to hear that a valuable piece of history was reunited with the family.
Very nice recap of very old lost and found!
Makes you think what else is at the bottom of the lake ? ? ?