The National Museum of Industrial History held its Last Cast event Nov. 14, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the last casting at Bethlehem Steel and the steelworkers who worked there. As part of the celebration, BAPL Publishing published “TUG!” a story book about TUG, a motorized plane mover and freight hauler.

The book was written by the library’s own Catherine McCaffrey, and was read aloud at the event by Lester Clore, a former steelworker, and member of the Steelworkers Archive Board.

The refurbished TUG was also in attendance, his shiny orange paint reflecting the sun as Clore sat nearby. After the reading of the story, children were given toy construction hats, a TUG! poster, water and treats.

TUG the machine was refurbished by Gary Gum.

“Mike Piersa and I, we started talking one day at a cars and coffee, because I had a car I was showing him, and he said ‘look over here, and I said ‘What is that thing?’” Gum said. Piersa is a historian from the National Museum of Industrial History.

The “thing” was TUG, and after many years of work, and decades in storage, he was not in good shape.

Gum set to work getting TUG back in running shape. He spent months researching and refurbishing TUG whenever he had time away from his full-time job. He found that TUG was actually a fourwheel-drive airplane pushback that moved big planes on the tarmac. At Bethlehem Steel, TUG was used to move freight around the plant.

“When I wasn’t here working on it, I was doing my research, or getting in touch with Kennesaw (Georgia), the TUG company, a subsidiary of Textron. They’ll put it on their website, they built something (TUG) in 1981, that is still around. There aren’t many things that were mobile then that are still mobile now.”

“As things got moving, the company helped me more and more. They had manuals they sent me. I spent months rewiring the whole thing because the wiring was in really bad shape. Then I sanded the rust, and put four coats of paint on it. It still has things I want to do to it, but it’s mobile now.

“Then the book came along, and we’re hoping that TUG will be an ambassador, like the locomotive.”

How much time and money was spent refurbishing TUG?

“Way more blood sweat and tears than money,” Gum said. “My wife says she didn’t see me all summer. Donations mean a lot to us, a lot.

“I’d like to see more people like me, who want to work on mechanics, and I’d be interested in hearing more stories from the steel workers, too,” Gum said.

“TUG!” Author Catherine McCafferty grew up in Bethlehem. She explained how the book came into being.

“Shortly after the pandemic shutdown” McCafferty said, “Josh Berk emailed me, and he said ‘Do you know of any children’s books about Bethlehem Steel?’ And I didn’t. Berk is director of BAPL and head of BAPL Books.

“He explained he was on the education committee for the last cast, and he was thinking about doing a story time with a steel worker. But they needed a book,” McCafferty said. “I thought about it for a little while, and I was trying to think of a story about Bethlehem Steel, but nothing came up that I wanted to develop into a story. Then Mike Piersa passed the idea about TUG on to Josh, and he passed it on to me.

“Mike gave me the background on TUG, and how he worked at Bethlehem Steel, and the ups and downs, and that’s how it got started.”

The story of TUG came together quickly, and in time for the book to be read at the Last Cast event.

“It was a very quick turnaround,” McCafferty said. “The story, the writing of it, came pretty easily. Mike would review it, and he would give me additional information.”

Berk hosted email and Zoom meetings with the author, illustrator Jim Atherton and museum personnel.

“It was great, hearing the steelworkers’ stories,” McCaffrey added.

TUG! the book can be purchased at www.BAPL.org. TUG the machine can be seen at the National Museum of Industrial History.

Visit www.NMIH.org for more information.