LAWRENCE, Mass. (AP) — “I think I can, I think I can.”

Just like the inspirational child’s book, students at Greater Lawrence Technical School were also successful in restoring a steam engine originally used in the Pacific Mill.

The students converted the engine from steam to air pressure power and it is now on display at the Lawrence History Center, 6 Essex St.

“It was fun bringing a piece of history back to life,” said Sydni Caratini, one of the students who worked on the project. The others were Kimberly Matute, Christopher Santana and Cesar Suriel, all seniors in the auto body shop.

In addition to the restoration, students also researched the piece and recorded a video of the engine in operation.

The historic piece belonged to Robert Carter, a former teacher in the machine shop, whose father had worked at the Pacific Mill. Carter, who retired, donated it to the school more than 10 years ago.

When auto body shop teacher Tom Hatem saw it again recently, he knew exactly what to do with it.

“History is important to me because it teaches us where we came from and where we’re going,” said Hatem, a teacher at the school for 18 years.

Before getting started, students took photographs of the engine from various angles to know where each piece belonged when they put it back together.

After taking it apart, the students striped it and sandblasted it.

Hatem said they were disappointed they did not find a name on it.

The students spent more than 20 hours restoring the piece which dates back to the late 1800s or early 1900s.

The engine looks just as it did a century ago, albeit a new coat of paint and instead of steam it now runs on air pressure. Also leather straps connecting the pieces were replaced with parachute strings.

On the first trial run, students stepped back afraid of what may happen, but their reaction soon changed.

“We were all cheering and clapping; it was very exciting,” Kimberly Matute said.

Hatem contacted Gene McCarthy, a volunteer at Lawrence History Center, to see if they were interested in the piece.

“Visitors come from everywhere and they want to know what life was like in the mills, now we have a piece of the mills to show them,” said Amita Kiely, assistant to the director.

McCarthy, who taught at Greater Lawrence Technical School for 34 years before he retired, agreed.

“It’s easy to show pictures, but it’s another thing to show them a real object that they can touch,” McCarthy said. “It’s specially great for the kids because they learned something about what made Lawrence the industrial capital of the world.”

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