Big Brutus is the nickname of the Bucyrus-Erie model 1850-B electric shovel, which was the second largest of its type in operation in the 1960s and 1970s. Big Brutus is the centerpiece of a mining museum in West Mineral, Kansas, United States, where it was used in coal strip mining operations. The shovel was designed to dig from 20 to 69 feet (6.1 to 21.0 m) down to unearth relatively shallow coal seams, which would then be mined with smaller equipment.
Description

The fabrication of Big Brutus was completed in May 1963, after which it was shipped on 150 railroad cars to be assembled in Kansas. It operated until 1974, when coal was uneconomic to mine at the site. At that time, it was considered too big to move and was left in place.

Big Brutus, while not the largest electric shovel ever built, is the largest electric shovel still in existence. The Captain, at 28 million pounds (13 kt) – triple that of Big Brutus – was the largest shovel and one of the largest land-based mobile machines ever built, only exceeded by some dragline and bucket-wheel excavators. It was scrapped in 1992, after receiving extreme damage from an hours-long internal fire.
Museum

The Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company donated Big Brutus in 1984 as the core of a mining museum which opened in 1985. In 1987, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers designated Big Brutus a Regional Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.

The museum offers tours and camping.

From Wikipedia:
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View over 90 photos of Big Brutus and the rest of the museum on my Flickr page here:
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Video by Eric Friedebach

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