Bucyrus Model 50-B Steam shovel
Twenty-five Bucyrus Model 50-B steam shovels were sent to the Panama Canal to build bridges, roads, and drains and remove the huge quantities of soil and rock cut from the canal bed. All the shovels but one were scrapped at Panama. The survivor was shipped back to California and then brought to Denver. In the early 1950s, it was transported to Rollinsville by Roy and Russell Durand, who operated it at the Lump Gulch Placer, six miles south of Nederland, Colorado, until 1978. This steam shovel is one of two (the other at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher’s Reunion in Rollag, MN) remaining operational Bucyrus Model 50-Bs, and is preserved at the Nederland Mining Museum. Roots of Motive Power in Willits, CA has also acquired a 50-B and operates it for the public once a year at their Steam Festival in early September.