Bucyrus Museum operated by South Milwaukee Industrial Museum

10/20/2026

Bucyrus Machines - From the Mailbox to the Money!

You might expect to find Bucyrus-Erie machines in mines, quarries, construction sites, and dredging operations - but on postage stamps and currency? Absolutely!

The Bucyrus story has literally been printed around the world.

📬 POSTAGE STAMPS

The Bucyrus handcar of the 1880s was featured on a U.S. 3¢ postage stamp issued March 25, 1983, as part of the Transportation Series. The handcar was manufactured by the Bucyrus Foundry and Manufacturing Company in Bucyrus, Ohio, during the 1880s. Railroad crews used handcars to transport workers and supplies while maintaining railroad lines.

Another remarkable example is the Bucyrus dredge Cascadas, which appeared on a 13¢ Canal Zone stamp issued February 23, 1976. The Cascadas was a 15-cubic-yard dipper dredge built by the Bucyrus Company and entered service with the Panama Canal dredging fleet in 1915.

💵 BUCYRUS ON CURRENCY

Bucyrus machines also found their way onto African banknotes.

A 500-franc note issued for the former État de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française features a Bucyrus-Erie 150-B electric shovel - an impressive reminder of the company's role in the industrial development of Africa.

And a South African 20-rand note features a Bucyrus-Erie 1570-W walking dragline, bringing one of Bucyrus-Erie's enormous walking draglines to the world's currency.

From an 1880s railroad handcar, to a Panama Canal dredge, to giant electric shovels and walking draglines - Bucyrus machinery has appeared on pieces of paper that traveled far beyond the factory floor.

It's another fascinating example of just how far Bucyrus and South Milwaukee's industrial legacy reached around the world.

Have you ever come across a Bucyrus machine on a stamp, banknote, coin, or other piece of currency? We'd love to hear about it!

🏭 Bucyrus Museum
1919 12th Avenue • South Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 AM–3 PM

10/06/2026

🌍 From South Milwaukee to Yorkshire:
Built right here in 1948, the 1,200-ton Bucyrus-Erie machine nicknamed "Oddball" is now the largest preserved walking dragline in Western Europe. Discover its journey, the origin of its famous nickname, and its final historic walk in this excellent feature article:

On a foggy Sunday morning in January, a 1,200 ton machine twitched back to life in a flat Yorkshire field.

10/01/2026

🎉 We’ve Reached 2,570 Followers! 🎉

Thank you to everyone who has followed the Bucyrus Museum and continues to help us share the history of Bucyrus-Erie and the people who built these incredible machines!

To celebrate reaching 2,570 followers, it’s only fitting that we spotlight the Bucyrus-Erie 2570-W Walking Dragline!

🏗️ The Bucyrus-Erie 2570-W

Regarded as Bucyrus-Erie’s “bread-and-butter” large dragline, the 2570-W became a popular machine in large surface coal mines. Between 1971 and 1983, 27 units were sold.

The 2570-W could be equipped with buckets ranging from 80 to 115 cubic yards and booms from 285 to 400 feet. Operating weights averaged approximately 6,200 tons.

Over its production life, the 2570-W went through several boom designs. The earliest machines featured a single triangular boom, followed by a twin triangular design. Later machines used a four-chord trapezoidal-type boom.

🚨 SUPER BONUS!

The story of the 2570 didn't end there.

A “Super” version, the 2570-WS, was a substantially different machine from the original 2570-W. One was erected at Arch Coal’s Black Thunder Mine in Wyoming in 1992.

With a 160-cubic-yard bucket on a 360-foot boom and a maximum suspended load of 675,000 pounds, this enormous dragline became the largest operating dragline in North America.

Then, in 2000, another 2570-WS began work for BHP Coal at Peak Downs in Australia. With a maximum suspended load of 800,000 pounds, this machine holds the distinction of being the world’s largest operating dragline.

Thank you for helping us preserve and share the history of Bucyrus-Erie!

🏭 Bucyrus Museum
1919 12th Avenue • South Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 AM–3 PM

09/29/2026

🎉 We’ve Reached 2,560 Followers! 🎉

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who follows the Bucyrus Museum and helps us preserve and share the incredible history of Bucyrus-Erie and South Milwaukee manufacturing!

To celebrate this milestone, we’re spotlighting a machine that shares our special number - the Bucyrus-Erie 2560-W Walking Dragline! 🏭

Introduced in 1969, the 2560-W took the legendary 2550-W to the next level. Weighing in at approximately 4,825 tons, it packed 21,000 horsepower from 22 DC motors - an increase of 4,000 horsepower over its predecessor!

Only TWO 2560-W Walking Draglines were ever built:
⚙️ The first featured a 295-foot boom and a 85-cubic-yard bucket and went to Midland Coal’s Elm Mine in Illinois.
⚙️ The second operated at Peabody’s Universal Mine in Indiana, equipped with a 275-foot boom and a 90-cubic-yard bucket.

Thank you for being part of our growing museum community! Every follow, share, and visit helps keep this history alive for future generations.

❤️ Like, share, and help us keep the Bucyrus-Erie story moving forward!

09/26/2026

From the steam shovels that carved out the Panama Canal to generations of massive earthmovers, our history is built on heavy metal and incredible innovation. Check out this fantastic feature from Mining , then come explore our archives, artifacts, and detailed scale models in person!

For anyone interested in mining machinery history, there’s one place in Wisconsin that deserves considerably more attention.

The Bucyrus Museum sits at 1919 12th Avenue in South Milwaukee, the city Bucyrus called home after moving its manufacturing operations from Ohio in 1893. The company remained deeply tied to the community for more than a century.

The museum itself exists partly because that history nearly disappeared.

Caterpillar acquired Bucyrus in 2011 and the original Bucyrus Heritage Museum eventually closed in 2016. Former employees and volunteers organized the South Milwaukee Industrial Museum in 2017, secured much of the surviving collection and spent more than four years finding it a permanent home. The new museum officially opened on August 3, 2021.

Its location couldn't be more appropriate.

The building once served Bucyrus as a machine shop and steam-engine assembly area before becoming the Bucyrus employee club in 1920.

Inside are photographs, engineering records, artifacts and detailed models covering generations of Bucyrus machines. Visitors can learn about the steam shovels used during construction of the Panama Canal, sit in an actual dragline operator's seat and try a simulator based around the massive 495 electric rope shovel.

Admission remains surprisingly affordable.

Adults pay $10, seniors $8 and students aged 11 to 18 pay $6. Children 10 and under enter free with a paying adult.

The museum is currently open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

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Photo: Ken Fisher's 3850-B model displayed at the Bucyrus Museum operated by South Milwaukee Industrial Museum
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09/24/2026

🎉 We’ve Reached 2,550 Followers! 🎉

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has followed the Bucyrus Museum, shared our posts, visited the museum, and helped us preserve the history of Bucyrus! We’re proud to have reached 2,550 followers - and what better way to celebrate than by spotlighting the machine that shares the number?

The Bucyrus-Erie 2550-W Walking Dragline

Introduced in 1964, the Bucyrus-Erie 2550-W was a massive walking dragline capable of swinging a 75-cubic-yard bucket on a 275-foot boom, supported by a 65-foot-diameter tub.

The first 2550-W was shipped in 1964 to the Ayrshire Collieries Company mine in Indiana. Ayrshire purchased a second 2550-W the following year. Two additional machines were shipped to Texas Gulf Sulphur in North Carolina and Pittsburgh & Midway’s Colonial Mine.

The 2550-W also marked an important development in dragline design. It was the first large Bucyrus-Erie walking dragline to use a triangular boom. In this design, the three main boom chords were filled with gas under pressure. If a crack developed and the gas escaped, the resulting pressure loss could alert the operator in the cab - providing an early warning of a potentially serious structural problem.

Come visit us at the Bucyrus Museum, 1919 12th Avenue in South Milwaukee! We’re open Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from 10 AM–3 PM.

09/22/2026

A Bucyrus-Built Giant on Torch Lake! ⚙️🌊⛏️

One of the most unusual machines ever built by the Bucyrus Company of South Milwaukee was a hydraulic vacuum dredge designed to recover copper from the bottom of Torch Lake in Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula.

Built in 1914 for the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, the machine was originally known as Calumet & Hecla Dredge No. 1. Unlike the bucket dredges commonly used for mining, this machine worked more like a giant underwater vacuum. It was designed to suck up the copper-bearing stamp sands that had accumulated on the bottom of Torch Lake after decades of copper processing.

In 1951, the Quincy Mining Company purchased the dredge and renamed it Quincy Dredge No. 2. It continued recovering stamp sands for the Quincy reclamation operation until 1967.

Today, the massive remains of the dredge are still associated with Torch Lake, serving as a remarkable reminder of the ingenuity, and sheer scale, of Michigan's copper-mining industry.

This remarkable machine was built right here in South Milwaukee by the Bucyrus Company.

More than a century later, it is another example of how Bucyrus-built machinery traveled far beyond South Milwaukee and became part of major industrial operations around the world. 🏭

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1DcRhf5vio/

09/03/2026

08/18/2026

A Piece of Bucyrus-Erie Picnic History! 🏭🌳

A big THANK YOU to the South Milwaukee Historical Society for their generous donation of these picnic badges to the Bucyrus Museum!

This donation gives us a wonderful glimpse into the social side of life at Bucyrus-Erie. The collection includes 1947 Bucyrus-Erie Employees’ Picnic badges for adults and children, along with a “Refreshment Ticket – Women Only” good for ice cream and soft drinks.

The picnic was held at Waukesha Beach on Saturday, August 30, 1947 - giving us a little snapshot of how Bucyrus-Erie employees and their families spent a summer day together 79 years ago.

It’s easy to focus on the enormous machines Bucyrus-Erie built, but pieces like these remind us that Bucyrus-Erie was also a community of people - employees, families, friends, and neighbors.

We’re proud to preserve these small but important pieces of South Milwaukee’s history and share them with future generations.

Thank you, South Milwaukee Historical Society, for helping us preserve the story of Bucyrus-Erie and the people who made it! ❤️

Come see this and many other Bucyrus-Erie picnic items!

📍 Bucyrus Museum
1919 12th Avenue
South Milwaukee, WI

🕙 Hours: 10 a.m.–3 p.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays

08/06/2026

🚜 FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Rare Bucyrus-Ruth Excavator! 🚜

Ever heard of an 18-ton machine built just for cleaning ditches?

In 1939, Bucyrus-Erie acquired the rights to the "Ruth Dredger" and transformed it into the Bucyrus-Ruth (Model HU). This highly specialized machine was a beast at maintaining irrigation canals and drainage ditches, crawling along banks on tracks with variable-speed digging buckets.

Powered by a Caterpillar engine, it was a marvel of utility engineering. However, its specialized nature meant limited sales, and World War II shifted manufacturing priorities. Bucyrus-Erie did not include the Bucyus-Ruth in its post-war machine offerings.

Today, it stands as a fascinating, short-lived chapter in our deep history of earthmoving innovation.

📖 Artifact Spotlight: The brochure pictured below was generously donated to our collection by Cynthia L. in Colorado. Thank you, Cynthia, for helping us preserve this history!

📍 Visit us at the Bucyrus Museum here in South Milwaukee to discover more hidden gems of industrial history, view historic photos, and see how our local legacy shaped the world!

🕒 Museum Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays: 10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.