Franklin, KS: Page 618 Dragline and Miners Hall Museum

Dragline after 2023: (Satellite)

Miners Hall Museum: (Satellite)

joplinglob (source)
"Cody Wilkinson, son of the owner of this Page 618 Walking Dragline, parked his pickup close to the big shovel to provide perspective on its size. The Page 618 weighs a little less than 500 tons and is thought to be one of only two of its kind still in existence." The boom is about 110' (33.5m) long. In 2023 the dragline will be moved to the corner of KS-147 and US-69. The dragline has been donated to the Miners Hall Museum. Grants totalling over a half-million dollars will pay for the move. Coal mining stopped in 1979 because of environmental laws. Then the dragline found a new life mining clay for manufacturing pottery.

"Over the years, the company bought three big digging machines, a Marion Model No. 37 Steam Shovel in 1935, a 222 Page Dragline in 1938, and the Page 618 dragline in 1953....The Marion Model No. 37 Steam Shovel sits in front of the Crawford County Historical Museum on the Highway 69 bypass in Pittsburg, and the 222 Page Dragline, which ran on rails, sits at the Big Brutus Museum in West Mineral, Kansas." [joplinglob]

All of the cranes were bought used. The 1979 EPA regulation required blending Southeast Kansas coal with Wyoming coal for a cleaner blend. [CrawfordCountyMuseum]

The article says that Wilkinson mined near Weir. So this may have been one of the mines.

Satellite

When I noticed that the Weir Baptist Camp was built on reclaimed land, that probably means that area was the last part that was stripped.

1964 Cherokee Quad @ 24,000

Once again, a road map allows us to see the land scars or tattoos of strip mining. Weir is near the bottom and Franklin is near the top of this area. 

Satellite

After reading this history, I think this was one of their mines because it is one mile north of Weir. The railroad that used to go north/south through this mine was the Frisco.

Satellite

Museum

Street View

Lawrence Land, Oct 2018

This is a video tour of the only other Page 618 that still exists. In the foreground is the hoist drum and the drum behind it is the drag drum. The boom could be 100'-120' with a bucket of 4- or 5-cubic yards.

10:19 video @ 6:00