The dredge ran from 1940 to 1952 stopping once from October 1942 until 1946 for WWII and then again in 1947 when Snake River Mining Co (Silas Mason) decided they were not making enough money and put it up for sale. The dredge is powered by two (2) Ingersoll-Rand diesel engines each producing 350 HP at that elevation. It has seventy-one (71) 8 cubic foot buckets each one weighs a little over a ton.
The dredge is 988 tons, 112 ft long x 54 ft wide x 64 ft high and has a draft of 8 ft. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is one of the best preservedĪnd presented dredges in the lower 48 states. Started on the 1st of April 1940 and finished on the 24th of August 1940. The pontoons and superstructure were built in Boise and trucked over Galena summit to this location. All the material came from Milwaukee by railway to the town of Mackay then loaded on trucks and made the difficult journey to construction site. They then contracted with Bucyrus Erie to build the dredge. It was estimated that there was 11 million dollars of gold to be had in the 5 1/2 mile claim. After doing some surveying they picked Yankee Fork valley as a place to do some dredging for gold. In 1939 the Silas Mason company out of New York was looking for a place to invest some money to help out the economy. The nearest town, Stanley, is 22 miles from the dredge. The Yankee Fork is close to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness area. The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is located in the central mountains of Idaho on the Yankee Fork tributary of the Salmon River. In the past few years we have made several changes and you may find a new appreciation of the dredge. If you have journeyed to our dredge before, we encourage you to re-discover us. Thank you for exploring our web site! We hope after browsing you will come visit us in person to tour the dredge, view our picture gallery and discover our gift shop.
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