The last gold dredge of an estimated 60 that once worked the gravel in mountain valleys in all parts of Idaho can still be seen on the Yankee Fork of Salmon River, where it is now operated as a historic site by the Yankee Fork Gold Dredging Association, a nonprofit volunteer organization.
This relic of the last days of big-time placer mining in Idaho was assembled at the site in 1940 after earlier prospecting had revealed enough particles of gold in the sand and gravel of the valley to warrant the expense of building a giant floating dredging machine. It could dig deep into the streambed with an endless chain of buckets, separate the gold from the gravel, and dump the tailings behind it.
The big wooden barge that held the diesel-powered machinery created its own flotation pond as it advanced. The barge was 112 feet long, 54 feet wide and 64 feet high. Each bucket in the chain held 8 cubic feet of gravel. The entire structure weighs 988 tons.
Dredging the Yankee Fork began in late August 1940 and continued until October 1942, when it was closed down for the duration of World War II. It was started up again in March 1946 by the Warren Mining Co. after Fred Baumhoff and J.R. Simplot bought the dredge and the mining claims of the original owners. Operations continued until 1952, when the dredge shut down for the last time. In 1966, Jack Simplot donated it to the U.S. Forest Service as a site important in Idaho’s mining history.
The Idaho Statesman reported in August 1937 that “twelve floating bucket dredges in Idaho in 1936 produced 26,098.19 ounces of gold, compared to nine bucket dredges in 1935 producing 22,616.96 ounces.”
Dredges listed in the story were the Idaho Gold Dredging Co. and the Baumhoff-Fisher Co. at Warren; the Jordan Creek Dredge at DeLamar; the More’s Creek Dredge at Idaho City; and the Grimes Creek Dredge.
On Sept. 5, 1937, the paper ran a photograph of Stackeal Yribar of the First Security Bank holding a gold brick valued at $14,000. The caption tells us that “two of the gold bars are brought in each month by the More’s Creek Dredging Co. of Idaho City.”
The earliest reference to a gold dredge that we have found appeared in the Idaho Statesman on Dec. 1, 1881. “On Sunday evening the Union Pacific brought Messrs. George C. Fletcher, T.H. Champion, E.M. Hough, and John Shiri, all from Detroit, Mich., on their way to Snake River to engage in mining for gold. They have secured a claim at Starrh’s Ferry, at the mouth of Goose Creek.”
This and other early dredges were powered with steam engines. Later ones would run on electricity generated by diesel engines.
The Bucyrus Erie Co. built the machinery for the Yankee Fork dredge, and it was an earlier Bucyrus Co. that sent representatives to Idaho in 1893 to try to sell its “gold saving machine” in Boise Basin. In July 1894, the Emmett Index noted that nearly every square foot of the 500-acre Marsh & Ireton ranch had been staked with placer claims. The McKinley Brothers of Duluth, Minn., bonded the famous pioneer ranch for $50,000, said the paper, “presumably for placer mining purposes.”
Next week, more about those fearsome dredging machines, and what finally put them out of business.
Arthur Hart writes this column on Idaho history for the Idaho Statesman each Sunday. E-mail histnart@mindspring.com.
