BIG MUSKIE--

Big Muskie was once the world's largest earth moving machine, roaming the hills of southeastern Ohio and munching strip mine overburden at the rate of 39 million pounds per hour.

The only part that remains of this behemoth is its 220 cubic yard bucket now resting in a memorial park in Morgan County.  That's lady friend Sue Brooks (above) dwarfed by the bucket which was once swung by a boom with a length of 310 feet.

It could take a bite of the Earth the equivalent of 12 automobile garages in cubic size.

During its working life from 1969 to 1991 it moved over 483 million tons of rock and soil on 60,000 acres of what is now known as American Electrical Power ReCreation Land.

It was the world's biggest excavating machine, a Bucyrus-Erie dragline, and the only one ever built.  It cost 45 million dollars.

It weighed 27 million pounds and was staffed by a seven member crew.  It was one and a half times longer than a football field and as wide as an eight-lane highway.

It's boom could lift a load the equivalent of 33 stories.

It ultimately was sidlined by more efficient mining methods and ever-tightening environmental regulations.  It was dismantled in 1999 and all components but the bucket were scrapped.


The bucket resides at Miner's Memorial Park on SR 78, eleven miles northeast of McConnelsville,. OH where Sue Brooks and sister Patsy Love are enjoying the park's scenic overlook in the Appalachian foothills of Morgan County,