The tours are self guided so you can stay as long as you want and explore the dredge at your leisure. Simplot in 1966, and in 1980 the Yankee Fork Gold Dredge Association began providing guided tours to the public.
The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is one of the best preserved and presented dredges in the lower 48 states. Later in 1953 Morrison ask them to remove the dredge, or pay rent as the dredge still sat on their claim, and so Simplot's men started it up and dug themselves to the current position where it has sat ever since. In 1952 Simplot ran out of original claim so leased a small section from the Morrisons when they completed that section they shut the dredge off and walked away. Simplot and a partner in mining, Fred Baumhoff, bought the dredge for $75,000 and started it up again in April of 1950. The dredge ran from 1940 to 1952 stopping once from October 1942 until 1946 for WWII and then again in 1947 when Snake River Mining Co (Silas Mason) decided they were not making enough money and put it up for sale. The dredge is powered by two (2) Ingersoll-Rand diesel engines each producing 350 HP at that elevation. It has seventy-one (71) 8 cubic foot buckets each one weighs a little over a ton. The dredge is 988 tons, 112 ft long x 54 ft wide x 64 ft high and has a draft of 8 ft. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is one of the best preservedĪnd presented dredges in the lower 48 states. Started on the 1st of April 1940 and finished on the 24th of August 1940. The pontoons and superstructure were built in Boise and trucked over Galena summit to this location. All the material came from Milwaukee by railway to the town of Mackay then loaded on trucks and made the difficult journey to construction site. They then contracted with Bucyrus Erie to build the dredge. It was estimated that there was 11 million dollars of gold to be had in the 5 1/2 mile claim. After doing some surveying they picked Yankee Fork valley as a place to do some dredging for gold.
In 1939 the Silas Mason company out of New York was looking for a place to invest some money to help out the economy. The nearest town, Stanley, is 22 miles from the dredge. The Yankee Fork is close to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness area. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is located in the central mountains of Idaho on the Yankee Fork tributary of the Salmon River.
In the past few years we have made several changes and you may find a new appreciation of the dredge. If you have journeyed to our dredge before, we encourage you to re-discover us. The tour includes time to explore the gold dredge on foot and shop for souvenirs in the well-appointed gift shop.Thank you for exploring our web site! We hope after browsing you will come visit us in person to tour the dredge, view our picture gallery and discover our gift shop. The effort pays off, though, because every guest gets to keep the gold they discover. Panning is surprisingly difficult, even with the assistance of helpful staff nearby. Attempting to master the swirl and pour technique gives a new appreciation for those early prospectors. During its operation between 19 this machine extracted millions of ounces gold.Īfter arriving back at camp, every guest is given a small sack of pay dirt to try their luck at gold panning. Along the way, miners demonstrate the use of traditional mining equipment like gold pans and sluice boxes before the train rounds a corner and pulls in front of Gold Dredge #8. After a brief presentation and a fun photo opportunity along the pipeline, the tour turns back the clock from today's black gold to yesterday's elusive mineral gold.Īn entertaining conductor provides historical commentary and live music as the train continues its route through the historic mining area.
The train's first stop is the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, an 800-mile oil channel that runs right through the Gold Dredge #8 mining district. This popular historical tour kicks off aboard a replica of the narrow-gauge Tanana Valley Railroad.
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