Cabin Country: A miraculous discovery at Twin City Outboard

In 1963, my dad bought a 14-foot Starcraft rowboat. The boat came with a brand-new Scott McCulloch "Scotty" 3.5 horsepower outboard motor. We spent many a summer day driving that boat all over Eagles Nest Lake 2, southwest of Ely, where our family had a lake cabin. After 12 years, our Scotty gave up the ghost. I remember dad endlessly yanking on the starter rope, but it was hopeless. Scotty just wouldn't start. Instead of having it repaired, dad decided to get a new motor.

Back then the best place to trade your old motor was Twin City Outboard at Nicollet Avenue S. and 33rd Street in Minneapolis. Dad sold them the Scotty motor, and off we went to Sears for a new outboard. We didn't have enough money for an Evinrude or a Chrysler, so dad settled on an inexpensive Sears Gamefisher 7.5 horsepower motor — a truly horrible unit that gave us no end of trouble.

When my father died in 2012, I bought the family cabin and embarked upon a huge refurbishment program. My wife has a fabulous eye for decorating and wanted to find an old Scott motor (identical to our original) and have it displayed in the living room. But we soon learned these motors are very rare.

Twin City Outboard moved to Shakopee in 1995, taking more than two years to move its stock of hundreds of vintage outboards to the new location. I called in 2012 and again in 2013, but the owner, Mark Hansen, told me they didn't have the Scotty I was looking for.

I'm not sure why, but I decided to try Twin City Outboard again this spring. I must have caught Hansen on a slow day, because he took plenty of time to look through his storage building. Twenty-five minutes later, Hansen emerged with a dirty, beat-up old motor that looked like it had been salvaged from the boiler room of the Titanic. I looked it over and noted which parts were missing, but it was indeed the one I was looking for. I wrote down the model and serial numbers and told Hansen I'd think about it.

Have you ever watched one of those old movies about a guy who experiences a great revelation? That happened to me on Hwy. 169 as I was driving home. I began to wonder if the serial number on the slip of paper in my pocket was the same as our long-lost Scotty's.

Once home, I ripped into some old insurance paperwork, given to me by my mother, and there it was — Mark still had our original Scotty! I called Hansen and told him I'd be back in 15 minutes. So on April 23, 2014, our prodigal outboard motor was returned to our family after having gone missing for 39 years.