Stumbling Upon Our Steam History

Ten years ago, my wife and I were paddling the Allagash river for seven days in Maine. Near our camp one day, we stumbled upon an old steam locomotive that was slowly becoming part of the forest. So cool. A bridge to the past refusing to become part of the past.



Now, imagine stumbling upon this Panama Canal relic in Colorado below. This steam shovel's last days were spent in a mine until the mine closed in 1971 and it sat for the next 35 years waiting to be recognized.


This was not ordinary steam shovel. This Bucyrus Model 50-B Steam Shovel was built in 1923, the largest tracked steam shovel built in the world at that time. As I wrote on Tuesday, the first steam shovels were rail based. This model was one of the first that did not need railroad tracks.

This particular shovel helped to build the Panama Canal and is the only survivor of 25 similar shovels used there. All others were destroyed on site. The shovel was donated to the Nederland Area Historical Society in 2005.