why did they stop using dredges for gold mining

Realizing there weren't enough profits being made, the Snake River Company sold the dredge to J.T. The dredge temporarily stopped operations from 1942 to 1946 because of World War II, but then resumed operation in 1947 under the Snake River Company. The time of its construction spanned from April 1 to Augand the dredge ran until 1952. The dredge would be built by Silas Mason and Bucyrus Erie in Boise and would then be sent to Yankee Fork. The New York-based Silas Mason Company settled in the Yankee Fork Valley after surveying the land in 1939. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is located in the central mountains of Idaho on the Yankee Fork tributary of the Salmon River, with the nearest town being Stanley, which is about 22 miles away. These tours feature a train ride on the Tanana Valley Railroad where there will be a narration of the dredge's history, and a pit stop at the Trans Alaskan Pipeline, which makes up 15% of domestic oil production in the United States. Tours of this dredge began in 1984, and 2 hour tours specifically for gold mining began in 1994. After being shut down for economic reasons in 1959, Gold Dredge #8 has since been used as a mining monument to honor the hard working people that built Fairbanks. Having its best years in operation from 1928 to 1959, Gold Dredge #8 extracted millions of ounces of gold from the grounds of Fairbanks, Alaska. Here are 5 that still exist and you should go check them out. However, the remnants of a few of them are still around today that you can still go and visit. Most of them are long gone, having been salvaged for wood and metal, burned up, or just fallen apart due to the hands of time. Due to their environmental impact they are not used for placer mining today, but many of them are still intact and sitting in the same place that they stopped working decades ago. Steel buckets were used on a continuous circular line at the front end of a gold dredge, and the material that is stored in the buckets are soon sorted out and sifted with water.īucket line dredges are true feats of engineering.

They would crisscross river drainages and churn up the ground, processing the gravels and extracting the gold. These massive floating dredges were used all throughout the western United States, Canada, and Alaska. One of the most fascinating inventions that has ever been used to mine for gold is the bucket line dredge.

Ever since the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in California, men have been using a variety of methods to extract gold from the ground. Gold mining in the United States is just a shadow of what it used to be.

Why did they stop using dredges for gold mining