The Sumpter Valley Dredge is known for “Joe Bush,” a tale that’s been featured in the Skeleton Creek book series and paranormal TV show Ghost Mine. Towns like Sumpter are guaranteed to have a ghost story or two. Oregon State Parks offers tours and gold panning demonstrations, and at certain times of the year visitors can watch the Sumpter Valley Railroad’s steam engine make a run through town. Today it’s anchored near the center of town. Although the wetlands of Sumpter Valley have partially recovered, the dredge left scars on the earth that will remain visible for thousands of years.Īfter sitting unused for decades, the dredge was restored in 1995. These buckets would tear through rock and soil, hauling it aboard to be processed while at the same time digging a new river channel for the dredge to move forward.Įcology wasn’t a concern. At the front is a chainsaw-like conveyer with 72 ore buckets weighing one ton each. The Sumpter Valley Dredge is a floating barge, built to be anchored in shallow water while systematically working away at the riverbanks. In Sumpter, industrial machinery was built to do the job instead. This was exhausting, backbreaking labor for very little pay, and white miners generally did not consider it worth the trouble. Twenty miles away at the Ah Hee Diggins site near Granite Creek, hundreds of Chinese laborers hauled away rocks and processed ore by hand. Prospectors found gold here, although extracting it from the riverbanks was another matter. The Powder River is what drew many of the miners to Sumpter Valley. A view from the back of the Sumpter Valley Dredge. Machinery inside the Sumpter Valley Dredge.
A view from the front of the Sumpter Valley Dredge. The Sumpter Valley Dredge’s ore conveyer buckets.
A view of the restored Sumpter Valley Dredge. Looking up at the dredge’s ore conveyer buckets.
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