| The Monighan Dragline
Sumpter, Oregon
Soon to be the largest and most ambitious exhibit of
the local Sumpter museums! In 2006 the Monighan 
will actually walk its way down from its present home to a permanent resting place at the Cracker Creek Museum of Mining in Sumpter.
Built in 1919........
That date makes the Monighan one of the oldest walking draglines in the world and one of only four that have been preserved! The Monighan was fitted with its walking mechanism sometime after 1925 and was brought to Sumpter, Oregon in 1940 by the Northwest Development Company to dig up land along the western edge of Sumpter. The Monighan's dragline buckets were used to chew up land on a large scale to reveal gold-bearing bedrock in a dry-land dredging operation unlike the historical Yuba Style dredge used throughout the Sumpter Valley which required a "pond" of water to float on.
The Monighan, which has not run for over 12 years, is a 10-ton monster which boasts an 80-foot boom capable of moving 6,000 pounds of dirt in a single scoop and is still intact! What made this earth eating beast unique is its ability to "walk" its hulk to the next plot of land to be devoured.
The Monighan was purchased by the late Pug Robinson in the 1960's but never really got around to doing anything with the machine. In 2003, Mary Robinson of Baker City donated this walking dragline on permanent loan to the Cracker Creek Museum of Mining in Sumpter, Oregon. CCMM's goal has been to restore the Monighan so it can walk under its own power to its final resting place at the museum, which is located about three-eighths of a mile to the north of its present position in the brush facing the Elkhorn Mountains. One of the exciting and amazing aspects of this restoration project is that our museum staff includes three volunteers who have actually worked on Monighan draglines and are anxious to bring this one to life again!
Photos
The Cracker Creek Museum of Mining is seeking volunteers interested in working with the Monighan and other museum projects in Sumpter!
Just send us an email:
info@sumpteroregongold.org
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Cracker Creek Museum of Mining
2465 18th Street
Baker City, Oregon 97814
(541) 523-3381
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