Turner to bring Hagan history back to Winchester

First elect­ed as LaRue County Judge Executive in 1985 and retir­ing in 2020, Tommy Turner has had a life­long fas­ci­na­tion with engines. Judge Turner says that he has col­lect­ed engines since he was thir­teen years old.

Turner will be shar­ing his pas­sion and some of his col­lec­tion with us here in Winchester on Sept 20^th at the Bluegrass Heritage Museum. Over the years, he has col­lect­ed pieces of Winchester his­to­ry. Hagan gas engines were man­u­fac­tured right here in the late 1800s and ear­ly 1900s. Some will be on dis­play and oper­a­tional as part of the pro­gram. Turner has col­lect­ed one of each size of the sin­gle-cylin­der engines and two of the two-cylin­der engines that Hagan built. Only 38 Hagan engines are known to exist. Turner also owns the only known remain­ing Hagan trac­tor (pro­duced 1906–1908, 14 to 50 HP). The trac­tor and one or two engines will be on dis­play from 10:30 AM to 3 PM. At 1 PM, Turner will present a PowerPoint and dis­cuss the his­to­ry, achieve­ments, patents, doc­u­ments, and blue­prints that he has amassed.

 Louis T. and Charles Hagan had already been rebuild­ing and con­struct­ing engines as ear­ly as 1891. They found­ed The Hagan Gas Engine & Manufacturing Company and oper­at­ed it from 1893 to 1917 on East Washington Street just beyond the viaduct. In 1906, an expan­sion of a brick three-sto­ry 60×125 struc­ture dou­bled the month­ly out­put of thir­ty engines.

Hagan was one of the first to enable dual car­bu­ra­tion, a car­bu­re­tor that could switch from gaso­line to nat­ur­al gas with­out miss­ing a stroke. Hagan was award­ed first prize for the most effi­cient and out­stand­ing engine at the Atlanta Exposition at the turn of the cen­tu­ry. The Hagan engine came to be known as “the Hagan Reliable Engine.”

Some Winchester res­i­dents may, in fact, have a piece of Hagan his­to­ry. Hagan is also known for patent­ing the Hagan Grate, a brass fire­place insert that was pop­u­lar with home­own­ers in the ear­ly 1900s. At some point, Hagan built wash­ing machines with inte­grat­ed gas engines. The his­toric five globe street­lamps that stand along Main Street were orig­i­nal­ly designed by Hagan drafts­man Warren Elkin and fab­ri­cat­ed just across the street at Eagle Casting.

Around 1918, Saunier Brothers, a met­al fab­ri­ca­tor, pur­chased Hagan, and pro­duc­tion ceased some­time after­wards. In 1983, Tommy Turner acquired what remained of the Hagan engine com­pa­ny for $200. In 1985, the remains of the build­ing on East Washington Street were demolished.

Kudos to Judge Turner for pre­serv­ing some of Winchester’s his­to­ry. Many thanks for com­ing to share your col­lec­tion and knowl­edge with us.