The movie “Seabiscuit,” nominated this year for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, offers its audience a slice of Franklin County history.

In a memorable scene, bicycle salesman Charles Howard is asked to repair a unique steam-powered automobile. Howard’s interest in the vehicle leads to a career in the auto industry where he makes enough money to become a horse breeder. Eventually, his racehorse Seabiscuit captures the hearts of Depression-era sports fans.

The vehicle that started the wheel turning was the Stanley Steamer, brainchild of Kingfield natives Francis and Freelan Stanley.

Susan S. Davis, president and curator of the Stanley Museum in Kingfield, said that it is not surprising that someone who repaired bicycles for a living would be asked to work on an early “horseless carriage.” Chain links used in Stanley Steamers were similar to bicycle chains. “The only places to repair chain links were bike shops,” said Davis. And while repair shops for automobiles were scarce in the early part of the 20th century, “bike shops were everywhere.”

Jay Leno, too

According to Davis, the car used in the movie is an authentic Stanley Steamer owned by Stanley Museum member Loren Burch from Cantil, Calif. Burch’s talents with Stanley Steamers are well-known, and he has helped talk show host Jay Leno with restoration projects. A huge fan of Stanley Steamers, Leno is also a member of Kingfield’s Stanley Museum.

The Stanley brothers were identical twins, who were born on a farm in Kingfield. They attended the local grade school and Farmington Normal School. Both married women from Maine before establishing an internationally successful, photographic dryplate business, first in Lewiston and then in Charles River, Mass. After selling their business to Eastman Kodak, the twins were independently wealthy. They built a steam car for the fun of it, but as orders flooded in, the inventors found themselves with a new business.

The Stanley Brothers didn’t invent the steam car; in fact, there were already over 100 manufacturers when the twins added their version to the market.

Quiet and fast

However, collectors today acknowledge that theirs was one of the best ever made. It was light, quiet, powerful and the fastest vehicle of its day.

With the perfection of electric starters and internal combustion engines, gasoline-powered technology soon replaced steam, and by 1924 production of Stanley Steamers had ceased. Today, the vehicles are prized by antique automobile enthusiasts, and the Stanley Museum in Kingfield is known to collectors around the world.

Right now, Davis is looking ahead to 2006 when a centennial celebration will be held in Ormond Beach, Fla., where the Stanley Rocket Racer set the land speed record for its day.

Meanwhile, Davis is happy, but not surprised, with the attention the movie “Seabiscuit” is bringing to the Stanley Steamer. The car was a natural choice for the movie, she said, because it’s unique, and “everybody knows the Stanley Steamer.”

Luann Yetter has researched and written a history column for the Sun Journal for the past nine years. She teaches writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. Luann.yetter@maine.edu.

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