Big Muskie was a coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

 mining Bucyrus-Erie

Bucyrus International

Bucyrus International, Inc. , was an American surface and underground mining equipment company. Founded as Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company in Bucyrus, Ohio, in 1880, Bucyrus moved company headquarters to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1893. In its early history, Bucyrus produced steam...

 dragline owned by the Central Ohio Coal Company

Central Ohio Coal Company

The Central Ohio Coal Company, once a subsidiary of American Electric Power, is now a subsidiary of CONSOL Energy. At one time, they owned and operated the Big Muskie in the Cumberland, Ohio area...

 (formerly a division of American Electric Power

American Electric Power

American Electric Power is a major investor-owner electric utility in various parts of the United States. AEP ranks among the nation's largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S...

), weighing nearly 13000 metric tons (12,794.6 LT) and standing nearly 22 stories tall. It operated in the U.S. state of Ohio

Ohio

Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...

 from 1969 to 1991. Big Muskie was the world's largest dragline, and one of the world's largest mobile earth-moving machines after Marion Power Shovel

Marion Power Shovel

Marion Power Shovel Company designed, manufactured and sold steam shovels, excavators and dragline excavators for use in the construction and mining industries....

 built the 6360 stripping shovel called The Captain at the Captain mine in Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

 and the German bucket wheel excavators of the Bagger 288

Bagger 288

Bagger 288 , built by the German company Krupp for the energy and mining firm Rheinbraun, is a bucket-wheel excavator or mobile strip mining machine...

 and Bagger 293 family.

Big Muskie cost $25 million in 1969, the equivalent of $ today adjusted for inflation. Big Muskie removed more than 608000000 cubic yards (464,849,353.7 m³) of overburden

Overburden

Overburden is the material that lies above an area of economic or scientific interest in mining and archaeology; most commonly the rock, soil, and ecosystem that lies above a coal seam or ore body. It is also known as 'waste' or 'spoil'...

, twice the amount of earth moved during the construction of the Panama Canal

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...

, uncovering over 20,000,000 metric tons (20,000,000 short tons) of coal. Its bucket could hold two Greyhound buses side by side. It took over 200,000 man hour

Man hour

A man-hour or person-hour is the amount of work performed by an average worker in one hour. It is used in written "estimates" for estimation of the total amount of uninterrupted labour required to perform a task. For example, researching and writing a college paper might require twenty man-hours...

s to construct over a period of about two years.

Big Muskie was powered by electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

 supplied at 13,800 volt

Volt

The volt is the SI derived unit for electric potential, electric potential difference, and electromotive force. The volt is named in honor of the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta , who invented the voltaic pile, possibly the first chemical battery.- Definition :A single volt is defined as the...

s via a trailing cable, which had its own transporter/coiling units to move it. The electricity powered the main drives, eighteen 1000 hp and ten 625 hp DC electric motor

Electric motor

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...

s. Some systems in Big Muskie were electro-hydraulic, but the main drives were all electric. Big Muskie used the equivalent of the power for 27,500 homes. The machine had a crew of 5, and worked around the clock.

Big Muskie was dismantled in 1999, despite calls that it be preserved as a museum. Its bucket was relocated to a newly constructed Miners Memorial Park in Morgan County

Morgan County, Ohio

**----...

 at .

A wildlife park

Wildlife Park

Wildlife Park is a construction and management simulation game released in 2003. Like Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Empire, the game involves players in building a wildlife park or zoo.-Animal list:45 animals were included in the original game....

 called The Wilds

The Wilds

The Wilds is a private, non-profit wildlife conservation center located in Muskingum County, Ohio. It is situated on 9,154 acres of reclaimed coal mine land and is home to over 25 non-native and hundreds of native species...

, which opened in 1994, was created from 10000 acres (40.5 km²) of the land stripped by Big Muskie and reclaimed. It is home to numerous species of African, Asian, and North American fauna.

The Big Muskie is a model 4250-W Bucyrus-Erie dragline (the only one ever built). With a 220 cubic yard bucket, she is the largest single-bucket digging machine ever created. Here are some of her specifications:

• · Weight: 27 million lbs., or 13,500 short tons
• · Bucket Capacity: 220 cubic yards, 325 tons
• · Height: 222 ft., 6 in.
• · Length of the boom: 310 feet
• · Length of machine with boom down: 487 ft., 6 in.
• · Empty bucket weight: 230 tons
• · Width: 151 ft., 6 in., comparable to an eight-lane highway
• · Cable diameter: 5 in
• · Electrically powered: 13,800 volts
• · Mobility: hydraulically driven walking feet

See also

• Dragline
• The Silver Spade
  The Silver Spade
  350px|thumb|Bucket and cab of The Silver Spade at Harrison Coal and Reclamation Park on [[Ohio State Route 519|Stumptown Road]]The Silver Spade was a giant excavator used for strip mining in southeastern Ohio. Manufactured by Bucyrus-Erie, South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the model 1950-B was one of two...
  
   - another large coal mining machine from Ohio
• MAN Takraf RB293
  MAN Takraf RB293
  Bagger 293, previously known as the MAN TAKRAF RB293, is a giant bucket-wheel excavator made by the German industrial company TAKRAF, formerly an East German Kombinat. It owns or shares some records for terrestrial vehicle size in the Guinness Book of Records...
  
  

External links

• Tribute page, with pictures
• Miners' Memorial Park -- Noble County tourism website
• Attraction listing at Roadsideamerica.com
• The Wilds –- wildlife park constructed on land mined by Big Muskie