Standing 22 stories tall and weighing 13,500 metric tons, Big Muskie was the world's largest dragline and the biggest machine that has ever walked on the face of the earth. With the boom down, it was almost 500 ft in length. Big Muskie was a coal mining Bucyrus-Erie dragline owned by the Central Ohio Coal Company. It removed more than twice the amount of earth moved during the construction of the Panama Canal. Its bucket could hold two Greyhound buses side by side.
I was talking to a guy in a bar in Fort Stockton,Texas in 2001. When I told him I was from Ohio he said he just came back from Ohio. He was on a crew that was cutting up "Big Muskie". He said he was there a year outside of Zanesville. He was surprised that I never heard of Big Muskie. I was surprised when he said it took a year to cut up. Here's why.....
