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| Andy Zukowski posted Illinois Central Railroad Depot in Freeburg, Illinois. 1912 Richard Fiedler shared |
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| Jeffrey Smythe commented on Andy's post 1895 |
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| Jeffrey Smythe commented on Andy's post 1977, just before it was torn down. |
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| Andy Zukowski posted Illinois Central Railroad Depot in Freeburg, Illinois. 1965 |
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| Jeffrey Smythe commented on Andy's post Freeburg Depot being razed in 1980's |
Mulberry Mine
In the ISGS directory for St Clair County, I did not find an entry for Mulberry with these dates.
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| Rager Kujawa posted Mulberry Mine & Railroad Tracks Freeburg Illinois IL 1907-1915 seen on eBay |
River King Mine
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| James R Griffin Sr. posted Peabody Coal River King Prep. Plant, Freeburg, Illinois 1965. |
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| James R Griffin Sr. posted River King 3850-B in 1966 in 1st pit with two loaders trying to keep up. Roger Kujawa shared |
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| 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. |
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| Mining #Shorts posted The first Bucyrus-Erie 3850-B, built in 1962, was deployed at Peabody’s Sinclair open-pit mine in Western Kentucky, nicknamed “Big Hog.” Its bucket capacity measured 88 cubic meters, with a main arm length of 64 meters and a total height of 67 meters. The machine weighed 8,165 tons and had a total installed power of 12,180 horsepower (8,950 kW), operating at 7,200 volts with a one-minute work cycle. Primarily used to remove overburden, “Big Hog” could excavate 76,460 cubic meters of earth and rock per day, reaching an annual output of 27.53 million cubic meters. At the time, it was the largest excavator in the world, four times larger than similar machines. Transporting its components required 300 vehicles over 11 months. Its chassis included a walking mechanism with four sets of eight crawlers, and the machine ran on 52 motors ranging from 0.25 to 3,000 horsepower. “Big Hog” remained in operation until 1985, with its parts retained as spares for its sister machine, “River King.” The rest of the machine was literally buried on site. - Another unit enters the picture... The second 3850-B, delivered in 1964, earned the nickname “River King” and worked at Peabody’s River King Mine in Southern Illinois. Its bucket capacity was 107 cubic meters with a hollow boom rod diameter of 2.14 meters, enabling it to move more than 200 tons per scoop. The shovel weighed 8,482 tons and featured onboard operator facilities including kitchens. Its rotation acceleration reached 0–40 km/h in 8 seconds, decelerating in 4 seconds. Daily excavation could fill 1,700 railcars over 25 kilometers, with an annual output matching Big Hog’s 27.53 million cubic meters. Over its lifetime, River King removed 558.9 million cubic meters of material, equivalent to two Panama Canals. It ceased operations in 1992 and was dismantled in 1993. Though eventually surpassed by the Marion 6360, River King remains one of Peabody’s most impressive engineering achievements in terms of size, weight, and excavating capacity. |
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| 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
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| HiveMiner |
Museum Of The Coal Industry posted three photos with the comment:
Peabody Coal CompanyRiver King MineSt. Clair County, IllinoisPeabody 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.
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| Directory |
Pit #1 was southeast of Freeburg and south of IL-15.
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| Freeburg |
Pit #4 was east of #1 and Pit #2 was east of Freeburg.
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| Muscautah |
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| Tilden |
The pits from North to South.
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| Pit #1 |
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| Pit #4 |
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| Pit #3 |
Pit #3 is now a wildlife area.
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| 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.
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| Satellite |
Museum Of The Coal Industry posted three photos with the comment:
Peabody Coal CompanyRiver King MineSt. Clair County, IllinoisPeabody 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!
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.
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