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Giant Shovel Scrapped, Bucket Saved

Beginning in 1965, a giant mechanical shovel named Silver Spade, weighing 14 million pounds and standing taller than a 12-story building, began chewing its way through eastern Ohio. For over 40 years the behemoth scoured the countryside for surface coal, outlasting rivals such as Big Brutus and Big Muskie, to become the world's last operating "super stripper."

The Harrison Coal and Reclamation Historical Park had its eyes on Silver Spade. Its members wanted the shovel as a centerpiece for a planned strip mining museum. They believed that when Silver Spade ate its way through the last available eastern Ohio coal, it would haul itself out of its pit, turn off its engine, and settle into retirement as a tourist attraction. The summer of 2006 was when everyone expected it to happen. Silver Spade had only a few hundred feet of coal left to strip.

But in April 2006, Silver Spade broke down. Its owner, CONSOL Energy, decided not to repair it. Instead, CONSOL announced that Silver Spade would be sold for scrap. The Harrison Coal and Reclamation Historical Park people were stunned. Couldn't CONSOL just donate Silver Spade to Harrison County? The park people offered to change their plans and build their museum around Silver Spade, in the pit. Sure, said CONSOL. We'll give you Silver Spade -- if you give us $2.3 million.

"What they were saying," said Claren Blackburn, president of the park, "was that, 'You're not gonna get it, you were never gonna get it, and we blew smoke at you for 15 years.'"

The Harrison Coal and Reclamation Historical Park raised $800,000 -- a hundred grand more than CONSOL was reportedly getting from the scrappers -- but CONSOL refused the money. "They could afford to give it to us, but it doesn't work that way," said Claren. "They're not going to be in Ohio more than another year, so there's no PR value in it."

The stripping of Silver Spade began February 1, 2007. The park people expect to get one of Silver Spade's buckets, big enough to hold a school bus, as the new centerpiece for their park -- which they now plan to build on land a mile away from the pit. They're also talking with the scrappers to get Silver Spade's control levers, cab seat, and maybe even the cab itself. Claren hopes that it can all come together fairly quickly, and that the park can open "late this summer or this fall."

August 2014: This project never happened.

[02/09/2007]
Status:
Gone

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