The picture of a 225 B Bycyrus steam shovel owned by the Harmon
Creek Coal Co. near Hopedale, Ohio was taken in 1930. Pictured left
to right: Henry Holly (engineer), Preach Manbeck, Charley Parks,
Chester Rapp, Eugene Thomas, Harry Mattern, Tom ‘Foxie’
Ryder, John Stevens, Eddie Crawford, Sam Busby (craneman), Ralph
Fenner, Bill Dwalt, Wayne Gottschall, Lloyd Busby, Dick Birney,
Matthew Lorenz, superitnendent. (Only two or three of the men
pictured are still living.)
The 225 B was one of the ‘giant’ steam shovels in the
1930’s sporting a 6 cubic yard bucket. It would be a
‘dwarf’ alongside of the 105 cubic yard Silver Spade or the
130 cubic yard Gem which are electric shovels built by Bucyrus Erie
that operate in Eastern Ohio.
The 225 B used one large boiler that sat across the rear of the
shovel to provide steam to power the hoist, crowd and swing
engines. Two men operated the machine. The operator or engineer who
took care of swinging the machine and hoisting the bucket and the
craneman who operated the ‘stick’ or dipper handle in and
out and also dumped the bucket. They had to be very good friends
and very cooperative to coordinate together the process of
maneuvering the bucket from ‘high wall’ to ‘spoil’.
Henry Holly was the engineer and Sam Busby was the craneman.
Note the large crew that was needed for the whole operation.
Many men were required to lay and maintain the track that the
shovel traveled on. The track had to be laid ‘solid’ as
possible (someone messed up for the shovel is buried) and as level
as possible for there were no lugs on the wheels. Sand was used to
gain traction. At the time the 225 B was built there were no
hydraulic jacks to level the shovel. Bucyrus’ competition held
the patent for leveling jacks. Ties and plank were used under the
track to get as level as possible. Then a bolster was pinned to the
under frame in the center with a large screw on each end that was
‘hand tightened’ before starting to dig and ‘hand
loosened’ before propelling took care of the unevenness of the
rail bed.
Another big job was laying and maintaining a water supply,
especially in winter due to freezing weather.
Note the absence of a bulldozer. The company had only one
International but it wasn’t used much. Manual labor, horses,
and slip scraper were used to dig out the shovel.
This picture was given to me by Wayne Gotschall ‘ of Jewett,
Ohio. Story courtesy of William Flowers, Route 2, Box 332 Adena,
Ohio 43901. All correspondence answered.
