New Fork Yankee Gold Dredge (Idaho, United States) | An Old Dinosaur - 14 Oct, 2023

The Yankee Fork Gold Dredge is a massive multi-story floating Dredge that operated for 12 years between 1940 and 1952 on the Yankee Fork River. The Dredge extracted > $1,000,000 in gold and > $14,000 in silver while operating.

Today, our destination is the Yankee Fork Gold Dredge, east of Stanley, Idaho, by about 20 miles (32 km). The Sawtooth Mountains, west of Stanley, are an incredible and scenic mountain range. Several years back, I traveled south of Stanley to Ketchum, Idaho, and was in awe of the landscape then. As we head west, I ponder why I haven't spent more time recreating in this area of Idaho.

Stanley is a tiny town near the foothills of the Sawtooth. Only about 116 people live in Stanley year-round. The winters are harsh, and many roads in and out of Stanley are often closed in the winter due to snow. 

We arrive in Stanley in the early afternoon and find a burger bar for lunch. I love the feel of the town. It has a distinct tourist feel, though. Most people I see in town appear to be enjoying many nearby outdoor activities. Mountain biking, fly fishing, and hiking are the most popular activities. This video of Stanley does a great job of showing how beautiful the area is surrounding the little town.

After lunch, we make our way to the Yankee Fork of the Salmon River. Immediately after turning up the Yankee Fork, I noticed the landscape changed drastically. Something is wrong. Vegetation is noticeably absent. Massive mounds of river rock are adjacent to the road on both sides of the truck. It is as if someone turned the river bed upside down. As I look more closely, the river rock mounds are layered together like layers on an onion. The layers continue the entire 8 miles up to the Dredge.

The photo of a photo that I took from inside of the Dredge shows precisely the phenomenon I described above. The layers (i.e., tailings piles) were created by the Dredge's side-to-side movement across the river as it moved slowly north.

In the 1st photo in this post,  we are looking at the front of the Dredge, which in the photo below is on the left side of the image below. The image below describes how the Dredge generally operated. 

The Dredge floated on the river while the bucketline (1) excavated the cobbles and fines of the river bed to bedrock. The tailings were discarded out the back of the Dredge via the suspended conveyor belt. In this image, the Dredge is moving from left to right.

Outside of the Dredge are one of the massive buckets (photo right) and half of an enormous bull gear that was used to power the Dredge. Even before I walked into the interior of the Dredge, I was impressed with the massiveness of this dinosaur. The bucket carries 8 tons (8,000 kg), and there are 71 buckets on the bucketline.

"Welcome to the Yankee Fork Dredge. Follow the one-way arrows for the self-guided tour. And please watch your heads," says the friendly old lady as we walk into the lower floor of the Dredge. The tour begins by climbing several flights of steep and narrow metal stairs. After a few flights, I look ahead and notice my Dad's pace has slowed considerably. Oh shit. Still afraid of heights, I say, chuckling. "Unfortunately, that hasn't changed. Give me a bit of time. I'll be alright." he says.

Finally, after three flights of stairs, we arrive in the control room and are greeted by one of the Dredge volunteers. "The entire Dredge was operated by a crew of three. One winchman, one oiler, and a Dredgemaster. There were three shifts per day, and the top paid employee, the Dredgemaster, made about $1.11 per hour in 1946," says the volunteers. The entire operation was controlled by the Dredgemaster in this room. 

The tour leads me down a flight of stairs to the Trammel overlook. The Trammel is a large cylindrical screen where the excavated materials are washed. The heavy gold particles would fall through the screen while the larger river rocks are carried out at the end of the Trammel to the conveyor, where the rocks are expelled from the Dredge. 

The old dinosaur is one of the best preserved and presented Dredges in the lower 48 states. The dimensions are 112 ft (34 m) long x 54 ft (16.5 m) wide x 64 ft (20 m) high. It feels like it, too, being inside. It doesn't matter if I am in the control room looking down or on the ground floor looking up. This is a massive piece of machinery. This dinosaur carried 18,000 gals (68,137 liters) and was hungry too. It consumed 25 gals (95 liters) per hour. It was powered by two 7-cylinder diesel-electric motors that produced 450 hp (331 kW).

I could easily spend hours aboard the Dredge. The more I explored, the more I was fascinated by this massive machine. We don't see machines like this being used anymore. The environmental impacts alone would be difficult to offset. The piece that fascinates me most is that the original price of the Dredge was $428,304 in 1940 ($9.4 Million in 2023). When it was built, people hypothesized that nearly $11 Million of gold could be extracted from the Yankee Fork. In 1949, when the owners realized they were only extracting a fraction of that, the Dredge was sold for $75,000 ($969,923 in 2023). Three years later, the Dredge was parked in its current location and abandoned when it reached the end of the claim. In 1966, it was donated to the U.S. Forest Service. Read more about Yankee Fork Gold Dredge and the lives of those who operated it here.

Visiting the Dredge was an excellent way to spend the afternoon. This dinosaur is an incredible site to see. I feel fortunate to be exploring this part of Idaho with my parents. I have always been fascinated by the mining history of the West. During this trip, I experienced some amazing sites that broadened my understanding of this exciting and interesting time in American culture.