Freeburg, IL: River King Mine and Big Paul, The King of Spades (B-E 3850-B)

Mike Yurgec posted
BIG PAUL - River King Strip Mine at Freeburg, Illinois.
Brian Weber Was Big Paul electric?
Mike Yurgec Yes.
Jason Smith Dad ran one for Midland Coal Co. in Victoria. When I was a kid, I would go up in the cab and sit on his lap when he was operating. Don't think OSHA would approve nowadays.

James R Griffin Sr. posted
I ran across this and I have racked my brain on the location, the shovel has "King of Spades" on left back. That is what was put on the Eagle 5761S when fired up. I don't know how I obtained the photo but someone should be able to know something about it?
James Stine: James R Griffin Sr., this is the 5761 at River King Mine after it was moved from Eagle Surface. If you look closely, the Krupp Wheel is behind the 5761. When the 5761 was moved to River King, they never put the sheet metal back on the gantry.

 

Stine James posted
Shown here in this photo is the 5760 Marion shovel "Big Paul, The King of Spades". This shovel went to work at the River King Mine near Marissa, Illinois in mid 1957 and captured the title of world's largest shovel with a 140 ft. boom and a 70 yd. dipper. In 1964, the shovel was moved to the Hawthorn Mine in Indiana. Photo courtesy of Coal Age.
Bill Odle: Big Paul was located at the River King in Freeburg, IL in 1957. My Dad was a cat operator at the mine when it went in to service. There was a BE 3850B built at the Lenzburg - Marissa mine, but it never had a name.
Stine James: When the 3850-B took over as the principle machine, Big Paul was moved to Hawthorn and the 1054X was moved to the Northern Mine. Once the 5760, or Big Paul, was placed into operation at Hawthorn, it was never re-named. Records indicate that it had the unofficial name "Big Greasy"
Stine James: If you get a chance, ask around about that fire. The 2570 was built in 1979. The story is this on the 5760, the machine caught fire in the collector ring area, the center pin area, which was more common than most can imagine. After the fire, the shovel did not run up to snuff, so to speak as the upper deck was warped from the heat. The did repair it, but it did not run well after that. How much longer it run, I don't know. I have this story from one person, I need to hear that from someone else to put it in the book.
Dane Schmeiderer: Went into the River King pit #6 when I was a young kid and had a tour with dragline-shovel operator Poly-Eye. I'm sure people from the mine remember him. I even Knew him after he retired and was a metal scrapper. Very good guy and enjoyed being around him. I believe he pulled a Guniness world record of amount of dirt moved in a days time. Whether true or not I don't know.
Donna Kern: Bill my dad Russ Kern was one of the operators on 3850B. I will have to ask him about the "poly-eye record" as well.
Bill Odle: I believe Mr. Schmeiderer is referring to Jim Pagliai (polieye) who was the day shift operator on the 3850B. I remember him as operator on Big Paul as well as the 3850B, and he was a pretty decent person. When did your Dad start operating the 3850B? I may have met him at least once if he were there in 1967 to 1968 time frame.
Donna Kern: Russ said he was on Big Paul and went to 3850B when it was built . He also stated that the record is not true on poly eye
Chance Duensing: My Great Uncle Paul Duensing was the master mechanic that built this shovel which they named after him.

 

Herve Exca posted
Moving a mining machine requires good expertise given its load and weight... generally it requires strengthening the ground with large plates to best distribute the load on the ground, we see here 2 INTERNATIONAL 560 loaders equipped with forks that move the plates and two MICHIGAN pushers that are used to adjust and tighten them together...
Exca
Daniel Krähenbühl shared
Joe Clark: Is this a picture of the 3850 at River King?
Mark Behrens: Joe Clark yes
Art Hale: Those are wood mats, very common when working around stripping shovels.
Jay Wilson: Lot of times the shovel picked the mats and moved them front to back. The endloaders tightened them up and also moved them.

A Flickr Photo of the wheeled excavator

HiveMiner

Museum Of The Coal Industry posted three photos with the comment:

Peabody Coal Company 

River King Mine

St. Clair County, Illinois 

Peabody had two mines with 3850BE shovels, the 2nd largest ones in the world. The one shown here, and another at Sinclair Mine in western Kentucky. River King produced 2-3 million tons of coal per year. 

In southern and western Illinois in the 1970’s and ‘80’s, it was said you could drive down any road and see the booms of shovels and drag lines every direction you looked!

Joe Schimansky: as long as they reclaim the land, build a nice pond .Picnic area for all to enjoy. I am 68 years young when I was young man ,The coal strip jobs would dig the coal out and just leave, Equipment and junk all over the sight. the Reclamation Act that we payed for, To cleaned up the places that were abandoned. It was a mess and dangerous.

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The pits by Freeburg are just a tip of the iceberg. This mine was so big that it was in two counties and near several towns along an Illinois Central route. I could not find any tipples for this mine.

Directory

Pit #1 was southeast of Freeburg and south of IL-15.

Freeburg

Pit #4 was east of #1 and Pit #2 was east of Freeburg.

Muscautah

Pits #3, #5, and #6 were further southeast.

New Athens East

And Pit #6 was even further south.

Baldwin

Tilden

The pits from North to South.

Pit #2

Pit #1

Pit #4

Pit #3

Pit  #3 is now a wildlife area.

DNR-hunting

I combined Pits #5 and #6 because some of the "Index 934" areas were not marked. Note that the southern part of Pit #6 has pretty much disappeared because they did a good job of land reclamation.

Satellite

Museum Of The Coal Industry posted three photos with the comment:

Peabody Coal Company 

River King Mine

St. Clair County, Illinois 

Peabody had two mines with 3850BE shovels, the 2nd largest ones in the world. The one shown here, and another at Sinclair Mine in western Kentucky. River King produced 2-3 million tons of coal per year. 

In southern and western Illinois in the 1970’s and ‘80’s, it was said you could drive down any road and see the booms of shovels and drag lines every direction you looked!

Dennis DeBruler

Peabody River King was a big mine. Judging from the pit numbers, they started near Freeburg,IL, and worked there way almost to Sparta.

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Facebook reel of Big Paul operating

Jerry Lacy: Dan Buckley big Paul was only at river king mine for a few years. It was built in 1958ish and ran until the 3850 was built across the river near lenzburg in about 1964. Big Paul was then moved to Peabody Duggar mine in Indiana. I’m not sure when it finished there.

Jeffrey Smythe: Jerry Lacy that sounds about right. I was born in 1960 and my father always took us to the mine to watch Big Paul. It was only a few miles away. I was about 5 or 6 then. Its funny how we could just drive up to where the shovel was working.