History Of The Item: This piece is a "Line Shaft Pulley", Comonly called "The Power Wheel" the piece getting its name from the fact that early wineries/ factories often only had one source of power. That power, be it electrical, steam or water, or horse drove one main shaft from which machinery was attached by wide belts from the pulley system. In some cases the main line shaft would run the length of the building. The pulleys would vary in size depending on the speed the machinery required. This wheel was later used with steam or stationary engines or electrical motors. If you had a wheel like that on your power supply be it steam; gas or electricity and a wheel on the machine you wanted to use, you would use a flat belt to connect the two together and then you would start the wheel on the engine and the machine would work. On "Smokstak" someone tells that the belts on your wheel or spool were used in as early as the 1400's with leather belts way before the before the IC-(Internal Combustion)engine was in use, even before steel steam engine  became popular power source. As early as the 1400s they were used on ranches, animal powered; horses, goats and dogs were put in a carisol walking in circles which was the main motive power, powering a long shaft and this power wheel with belts made from cow or horse hides would transmit power for many of the uses of the time, billows for forges, ginders for mills, ect...

See photo attached