Spence explains, even early dredges were considered a safe investment: Nevertheless, the Union Construction Company and other dredge-makers had discovered a winning strategy. Unlike the dredges Johnson designed for the tropics, the Alaskan machines faced cold and ice that curtailed the months they could operate and demanded that permanently frozen ground be thawed before it could be worked. The parts were then transported to a specific gold claim and reassembled. The dredges the Union Construction Company produced were built in San Francisco and then dismantled and shipped in pieces to Alaska. And in the early years he brought his family-his wife Pearl and sons Keith and Paul-on these work trips that took them on lengthy Yukon River steamboat journeys and to some of Alaska's most remote mining districts. As the dredge worked, it continuously dug into its own pond in front and filled it in with tailings at the back.Starting in 1909, Johnson began traveling to Alaska to direct the construction of dredges near Nome and throughout the Seward Peninsula as well as in the Alaskan interior at Ruby, McGrath, Iditarod, Circle, and Fairbanks. After its completion, the pond was filled with the 8-10 feet of water needed to float and operate the 988 ton dredge. Sometimes it took a whole day to load just one truck with some of the pieces needed to build the dredge.Īnother trucking company delivered the twenty-five pontoons, each measuring 10x10x27 feet, by hauling them over Galena Summit, no small feat. One of the largest loads was the 55-foot, 17.5 ton spud. Some pieces were shipped by rail to Mackay and trucked there by Lindberg’s Trucking Company of Mackay to the Yankee Fork site over Spar Canyon Road. It was a major operation to transport the equipment and pieces needed to build the dredge. Winch room at the Yankee Fork Dredge Construction of the Yankee Fork DredgeĪ pond for the Yankee Fork Gold Dredge was constructed to allow the assembly of the massive four-story floating machine.

Hand dredge bucket