The frame of the hull is really all that’s left, and even that’s slowly rotting away, but the shape of it is unmistakable. The machinery and most of the structure were all removed, either scrapped or re-used when the Sumpter Valley Dredge was built. If I didn’t know what I was looking for it would have been tough to imagine it resembling the restored dredge in Sumpter. A few miles outside of town I parked on a forest service road, crossed the river by foot and saw it with my own eyes. I spent an evening studying satellite photos, and eventually found what I was sure had to be the dredge. The remains of the second one is a short distance down the road next to a railway museum, but the third is harder to find. The Sumpter Valley Dredge is one of three mining dredges that once operated in the area. The remaining traces of a mining building lost to time. Buildings near a former mining operation. The buried entrance to this gold mine is still barely visible. A cabin I found in the woods, not far from the location of a former gold mine. Another view of the ore processing facility, looking down at the road to Sumpter.
Rail tracks once connected it to several nearby gold mines. The remains of an ore processing facility outside of Sumpter, Oregon. Many of them have deteriorated to the point where they’re barely identifiable, if there’s anything left at all. I walked along old rail lines, finding mine entrances and what’s left of wooden structures. On a recent trip to the area I followed a 1900s historical map, searching for traces of former mining operations. Out here history is slowly being lost to time and the elements. Sumpter’s history is preserved in time, but things are different in the hills outside of town. There’s no record of anyone named Joe Bush who worked on the dredge, much less died there. But even the most eager ghost hunters will admit it’s tough to believe.
Hand dredge series#
The Sumpter Valley Dredge is known for “Joe Bush,” a tale that’s been featured in the Skeleton Creek book series and paranormal TV show Ghost Mine. Towns like Sumpter are guaranteed to have a ghost story or two. Oregon State Parks offers tours and gold panning demonstrations, and at certain times of the year visitors can watch the Sumpter Valley Railroad’s steam engine make a run through town. Today it’s anchored near the center of town. Although the wetlands of Sumpter Valley have partially recovered, the dredge left scars on the earth that will remain visible for thousands of years.Īfter sitting unused for decades, the dredge was restored in 1995. These buckets would tear through rock and soil, hauling it aboard to be processed while at the same time digging a new river channel for the dredge to move forward.Įcology wasn’t a concern. At the front is a chainsaw-like conveyer with 72 ore buckets weighing one ton each. The Sumpter Valley Dredge is a floating barge, built to be anchored in shallow water while systematically working away at the riverbanks. In Sumpter, industrial machinery was built to do the job instead. This was exhausting, backbreaking labor for very little pay, and white miners generally did not consider it worth the trouble. Twenty miles away at the Ah Hee Diggins site near Granite Creek, hundreds of Chinese laborers hauled away rocks and processed ore by hand. Prospectors found gold here, although extracting it from the riverbanks was another matter. The Powder River is what drew many of the miners to Sumpter Valley. A view from the back of the Sumpter Valley Dredge.
Machinery inside the Sumpter Valley Dredge.
A view from the front of the Sumpter Valley Dredge. The Sumpter Valley Dredge’s ore conveyer buckets. A view of the restored Sumpter Valley Dredge. Looking up at the dredge’s ore conveyer buckets.
0 kommentar(er)
