https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2018/...ional-register-of-historic-places/?refer=news
Photo courtesy Big Brutus, Inc.
Big doesn’t begin to describe Brutus. Other mechanical shovels scattered around the towering piece of machinery look like toys. On the flats of southeastern Kansas it stands out for miles. So big it can’t move, nor has it in decades, which has thus led to its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Technically a Bucyrus-Erie Model 1850B electric dragline shovel, Big Brutus was built in 1962 (at a cost of $6.5 million, or about $51.6 million in today’s dollars) for the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company’s strip-mining operation in West Mineral, Kansas. What it lacked in speed – it topped out at .22 miles per hour – it made up for in volume: A single scoop from its bucket could fill three railroad cars with 90 cubic yards, or about 150 tons, of material. Three-man crews worked Big Brutus day and night all year round.
What Big Brutus did not do was scoop coal. Instead, the shovel cleared the soil atop the coal in long pits and then filled the pits back in after other equipment removed the coal from the exposed seams. “You just continually worked your way across the property you were stripping,” one of its former operators, Dave Kimrey, told the Lawrence World-Journal in 2007. “It was very similar to plowing a field.”
Billed as the largest electric shovel in the world today, Big Brutus didn’t always carry that title. Its rival, Big Muskie, performed a similar job in McConnelsville, Ohio, though with a 220-cubic-yard scoop, until it was scrapped in 1999.
While the paperwork for the nomination of Big Brutus to the National Register of Historic Places notes that environmental regulations brought the shovel’s working career to a halt in April 1974, other factors certainly played a role too, including the depletion of the area’s coal, lower coal prices, and ballooning operating expenses: The 15,000 peak horsepower drivetrain itself sucked down $27,000 worth of electricity per month.
Rather than try to sell or scrap it, P&M decided to simply park Big Brutus – on what is now called the Mined Land Wildlife Area – and in 1984 donated the machine (along with $100,000 for restoration) to Big Brutus, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping the shovel open as a museum dedicated to the area’s mining history.
Since then, the shovel has been designated a Regional Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and has been added to the Register of Historic Kansas Places. The shovel’s placement on the National Register of Historic Places was announced earlier this month and will make a wider range of tax credits and grants available to Big Brutus, Inc., which has been raising funds for a repaint of the shovel.
Photo courtesy Big Brutus, Inc.
Big doesn’t begin to describe Brutus. Other mechanical shovels scattered around the towering piece of machinery look like toys. On the flats of southeastern Kansas it stands out for miles. So big it can’t move, nor has it in decades, which has thus led to its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
Technically a Bucyrus-Erie Model 1850B electric dragline shovel, Big Brutus was built in 1962 (at a cost of $6.5 million, or about $51.6 million in today’s dollars) for the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company’s strip-mining operation in West Mineral, Kansas. What it lacked in speed – it topped out at .22 miles per hour – it made up for in volume: A single scoop from its bucket could fill three railroad cars with 90 cubic yards, or about 150 tons, of material. Three-man crews worked Big Brutus day and night all year round.
What Big Brutus did not do was scoop coal. Instead, the shovel cleared the soil atop the coal in long pits and then filled the pits back in after other equipment removed the coal from the exposed seams. “You just continually worked your way across the property you were stripping,” one of its former operators, Dave Kimrey, told the Lawrence World-Journal in 2007. “It was very similar to plowing a field.”
Billed as the largest electric shovel in the world today, Big Brutus didn’t always carry that title. Its rival, Big Muskie, performed a similar job in McConnelsville, Ohio, though with a 220-cubic-yard scoop, until it was scrapped in 1999.
While the paperwork for the nomination of Big Brutus to the National Register of Historic Places notes that environmental regulations brought the shovel’s working career to a halt in April 1974, other factors certainly played a role too, including the depletion of the area’s coal, lower coal prices, and ballooning operating expenses: The 15,000 peak horsepower drivetrain itself sucked down $27,000 worth of electricity per month.
Rather than try to sell or scrap it, P&M decided to simply park Big Brutus – on what is now called the Mined Land Wildlife Area – and in 1984 donated the machine (along with $100,000 for restoration) to Big Brutus, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to keeping the shovel open as a museum dedicated to the area’s mining history.
Since then, the shovel has been designated a Regional Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and has been added to the Register of Historic Kansas Places. The shovel’s placement on the National Register of Historic Places was announced earlier this month and will make a wider range of tax credits and grants available to Big Brutus, Inc., which has been raising funds for a repaint of the shovel.
