trainwreck
Well-Known Member
we had the weekend off and had to stay here in Baker City, so i went for a drive to the town of Sumpter. While driving around the very small town i for a park with this in the middle of it.
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gold mining thing.
- Thread starter trainwreck
- Start date
mitch504
Senior Member
wow, nice old dredge. that in oregon?
trainwreck
Well-Known Member
yeah its in eastern oregon.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=sumpter oregon&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl On the map that the link brings up you can see all the little spot of water that are all chopped up. that is the area that the dredge ran in.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=sumpter oregon&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl On the map that the link brings up you can see all the little spot of water that are all chopped up. that is the area that the dredge ran in.
Big Iron
Well-Known Member
Good friend of mine has owned a couple of hundred acres up Cracker Creek in Sumpter forever that has several gold mines on it and great elk/deer hunting! He was telling me the story behind that dredge. It seems that when it was decommissioned and put to bed one of the old boys in town bought it for a song. Everyone in town thought he was crazy, unbeknownst to them it seems those old dredges left a lot of gold in the bilges and various other hiding spots. The old boy cleaned out the dredge with a fine tooth comb. Made enough to pay for it and a bunch more. He then donated it to the city for a historical monument. Don't know how much truth is in that story, but have heard it from more that one local in the local pub:drinkup.
dadsdozerhd5b
Active Member
there is a dredge like this on the series goldrush. it is in the klondike in canada and looks like it dug anywhere, even where there is no water. cannot figure that out. amyone have any info as to how they operated?
245dlc
Senior Member
There were several of those placer mining dredges in the Yukon. They dug they're own pond to float in and all the tailings that came out of the sluice boxes went up a long conveyor belt (stacker) and essentially backfilled the pond behind it. The ground ahead of the dredge had to be thawed as they have permafrost that far north. They thawed the ground by pounding in water jets that sprayed cold water into the ground causing the ground to thaw and allowing it to be mined. Those dredges were usually built by Bucyrus Erie. My dad use to work up there in the early to mid seventies at a couple of lead/zinc mines and at an asbestos mine in northern B.C. And in 1998 my dad was up by Dawson City for the Centennial 1898-1998 and there is a restored dredge unit #4 that was rescued by the Canadian Government in '80's or '90's and put on permanent display.
sandnsnow
Well-Known Member
very cool, I would have liked to see the old girl in action back in the day.
We toured one of these outside of Fairbanks Alaska some 20 years ago. I can't remember all the specs of it, the guy said it could be heard a mile or so away when it was running. There was primary [high voltage] wire to it from the shore, 3 phase. The gears in it were massive. A sluice type setup inside, I think they poured mercury in at some point, the gold stuck to it.
245dlc
Senior Member
They didn't pour mercury in it that's used in a different process to refine the gold after it's been sluiced and panned.
20+ years dims the memory -
carlsharp
Well-Known Member
There is a restored 350 ton dredge in Skagway, Ak
http://www.klondikegolddredge.com/
http://www.klondikegolddredge.com/
chevytrux53
New Member
thats awesome
kb1
New Member
There is a fascinating post on Livejournal with pictures of a floating dredge in use quite recently in Russia. Unfortunately the entry is in Russian, but the language translator in Google Chrome does a half decent job on it: http://mishakiselev.livejournal.com/5328.html
carlsharp
Well-Known Member
KrayzKajun
Active Member
Bet it was incredible to watch that ole monster in action!
carlsharp
Well-Known Member
Speaking of which...
I was watching Bering Sea Gold tonite and kept seeing a dredge in the background, looking like it was land-locked. So I found it...
I was watching Bering Sea Gold tonite and kept seeing a dredge in the background, looking like it was land-locked. So I found it...