A piece of history that Joe Merli salvaged now has a place of honor on the Gas Up grounds.

When the old Mobil station in Duanesburg was demolished, Merli had saved its cupola.

“After his funeral, we got together at his shop,” said Merli’s friend, Charlie Stewart. “I saw the cupola and thought, if somebody doesn’t do something soon, this will be ruined.”

So Stewart, who lives next to the Gas Up in Schoharie, began working on the project. “There was extensive rot,” he said. “I had to add a steel frame to support it.”

Stewart was following the example of his friend.

Merli had made history tangible through objects. He fixed things no one else could, and he sought to preserve the industrial heritage that built America.

He once wrote in a letter to the Enterprise editor of the importance of saving a smokestack at the old Army depot as a monument to American history — “a symbol of freedom, helping us to win a world war” — or a steel bridge that crossed the Normanskill, likening it to the Eiffel Tower. “We need to stop thinking about our own little selves and start thinking about preserving these symbols of how our nation was built for our future generations,” he wrote.

Merli worked on displays at the Altamont Fair and at the village’s archives and museum; he helped with the restoration of the historic train station for the Altamont Free Library. But, most central to his mission in life was assembling the Canal Street Station Railroad Village with a locomotive, a diner, a general store — all to illustrate the values of a bygone way of life.

He had grown up on Route 20 in Duanesburg where his parents had an Esso service station. His father was a mechanic and his mother ran a luncheonette on the five-acre plot, where the couple also rented cabins to travelers. Kathy’s Luncheonette and Cabins was named for Merli’s sister. Vacationing families would stay for a week, at $5 a night, visiting local tourist venues like Howe’s Caverns, returning to eat meals at the luncheonette.

“As an infant in my crib, I could listen to the cars ring the bell as they drove over the air hose. Ding! Ding!” Merli had recalled of the place where he grew up and later built his business. “My parents put a crib in here,” he said, referring to the shop he had expanded and taken back in time to look like a late-1800s factory.

“This has been a crib to me since I was a child,” he said.

He died on Feb. 13, 2016, at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York.  He was 65.

His life partner, Marilyn Miles, wanted Stewart to have the cupola so it could be saved and put to use.

Last Friday, after the cupola was restored to its former glory, it was hoisted to its new position, atop a barn on the Gas Up grounds.  The Gas Up, which celebrates antique machinery in an annual festival is 50 years old this year. The fresh red paint on the cupola’s shutters stood out next to the crisp white side boards against a cloudy sky.

“Joe would be proud to see that,” said Miles of the restoration.

If it hadn’t been Merli’s, Stewart said, he’d have let the cupola go. But he couldn’t.

“Joe always said, ‘You can save anything,’” recalled Stewart.

So he did.