WEST MINERAL, Kan. -- It definitely was not what we expected. We had seen the signs many times on trips back to our old home in northwestern Kansas but figured it was just an old rusty mining shovel and not worth the detour from the highway. We just ignored the signs and stayed our course.
But last week's trip was different. It was different because our 3-year-old grandson was along, and he loves trains, trucks, excavators and big machines. I figured it was not really much out of the way, so it wouldn't hurt to drive by and let him see the big machine out the window as we passed. But, as I said, it definitely was not what we expected.
We could see it from the road a good distance away. It was massive. We were a bit awestruck to see it. We didn't just drive past. We stopped and took the time to see and tour it. It was Big Brutus, not an old rusty steam shovel but an 11 million pound electric shovel which operated day and night from 1963 to 1974 digging out coal in a strip mining operation in southeastern Kansas.
Big Brutus is the name given to the Bucyrus-Erie model 1850-B electric shovel, the largest of its type used in the 1960s and 1970s. It sits idle near West Mineral, Kan. -- only about 100 miles from Gentry, Decatur and Gravette.
According to information provided by the mining museum where Big Brutus rests, it took 52 men 11 months to assemble the machine and cost $6.5 million to build in 1962. The giant shovel worked 24 hours a day for 11 years, but when the Pittsburg & Midway coal mine shut down in 1974, Big Brutus was backed out of the last pit where it was used and parked. Because of the high cost to dismantle the machine, it was left behind and serves as a giant reminder of the mining industry in the area.
The shovel stands 160 feet tall, nearly 16 stories, and weighs 11 million pounds. Its power plant provided 7,500 horsepower under normal operating conditions and could provide 15,000 horsepower at peak load conditions (equivalent to the power used by a city of 15,000 people, according to the museum). Its shovel could fill three railroad cars with a single scoop.
Surprisingly, the massive shovel could be operated by three people -- an operator at the controls, an oiler and a ground man. Of course, many more were employed in other aspects of the mining operation.
Visitors to the giant shovel can climb up stairs inside the machine to the control room, approximately six stories up, and look out at the boom and over a nearby mining pit which is now a small lake. Standing next to the tracks on the shovel's crawlers or inside the shovel's bucket reveals the enormity of Big Brutus.
A museum on the grounds provides information on Big Brutus and the mining operations conducted in the region and has a number of smaller replicas of giant shovels and mining equipment.
More information on Big Brutus is available at www.bigbrutus.org or by calling 620-827-6177.
And, as a bonus for train lovers -- whether 3 or 63, and our grandson is a young train enthusiast -- a railroad museum is just a few miles away in Scammon, Kan., with a steam locomotive, a passenger train and numerous engines, as well as depot buildings. We discovered it when seeing an old passenger train on the tracks as we were driving past. We were surprised and our grandson was elated to find much more there to see. The museum is operated by Heartlands Train Club. More information on the railroad museum can be found at www.heartlandstrainclub.org.
General News on 06/20/2018