Bucyrus-Erie

1880-1927

Bucyrus was an early producer of steam shovels, operating from its Bucyrus, Ohio headquarters and manufacturing facility. In 1893, Bucyrus moved its operations to South Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[8]

A Bucyrus steam shovel working in the Panama Canal

In 1904 Bucyrus supplied 77 of the 102 steam shovels used to dig the Panama Canal.^[9] These were ninety-five-ton models with five-cubic-yard buckets that could move approximately eight tons of material at once. They were operated by a crew of four. Similar to a locomotive, the crew was headed by a engineer, and included two firemen who stoked the boiler with coal, and a craneman. A support crew on the ground of six men extended the rails on which the shovel moved as the digging progressed. A famous photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt was taken in November 1906 operating a Bucyrus shovel in Panama during his inspection trip to the canal. In March 1910, a single Bucyrus shovel excavated 70,000 cubic yards over twenty-six consecutive days at the Culebra cut, setting a canal construction record. Each shovel averaged more than 1,000,000 cubic yards of earth excavated at the cut.^[10]

Theodore Roosevelt on a Bucyrus shovel in the Panama Canal in 1906

1927-1980

The company changed its name to Bucyrus-Erie in 1927 when it merged with the Erie Steam Shovel Company, the country's leading manufacturer of small excavators at that time.

In 1930 Bucyrus joined with the English firm of Ruston & Hornsby Ltd Lincoln, England, to form the Ruston-Bucyrus Ltd firm in England. Ruston & Hornsby Ltd were the pre-eminent manufacturers of steam excavators at the time, having started in 1874; the merger gave the company access to previously unavailable world markets.

1980-2011

Ruston & Hornsby Ltd sold their share in Ruston-Bucyrus in 1985, during a period of recession and consolidation in the mining industry, as they divested themselves of non-core businesses to survive.

For a time in the 1980s the company was known as Becor Western following its merger with Western Gear.

On February 18, 1994, Bucyrus-Erie filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and remained under bankruptcy protection until December 14, 1994.^[11]

The company took its current name, Bucyrus International, Inc. in 1997.

Bucyrus built hundreds of large mining machines, as well as construction equipment, in an intense competition against competitor Marion Power Shovel. Bucyrus acquired Marion Power Shovel in 1997.

On May 4, 2007, Bucyrus completed the acquisition of the DBT Group, a Lunen, Germany based manufacturer of underground mining equipment, from RAG Coal International AG of Herne, Germany. Bucyrus acquired DBT because DBT's underground mining equipment complemented Bucyrus' surface mining products.

In February 2010, Bucyrus International completed a US $1.3 billion acquisition of the mining equipment division of Terex Corporation.^[12]

On November 15, 2010, Bucyrus agreed to be acquired by Caterpillar in a transaction valued at US$8.6 billion. Caterpillar said it intended to create a new mining business headquarters at the former Bucyrus headquarters location in South Milwaukee. The transaction closed in mid-2011.^[13]

The Intellectual Property Rights for Bucyrus Erie cranes was acquired by Sparrows Group which has crane manufacturing operations based in Houston, Texas ^[14]

Historical

• 4250-W walking dragline, also known as Big Muskie, was built in 1969, with a 220-cubic-yard (170 m³) bucket and weighed 13,000 metric tons. Big Muskie's 220-cubic-yard (170 m³) bucket is currently sitting outside McConnellsville, Ohio in a small park dedicated to coal mining.
• Two 3850-B stripping shovels built in 1962 and 1964, with bucket capacities of 115 and 145 cu yd (88 and 111 m³).
• The 2570-W or WS, one of B-E's most popular dragline models with bucket capacities between 120 and 160 cu yd (92 and 122 m³).
• The Silver Spade and its twin the GEM of Egypt, 1950B Stripping shovels, was built in 1965 and 1967 respectively, with a bucket capacity of 80 m³ (100 cu yd). The Silver Spade was scrapped in 2007. Many videos can be seen of it working through Bennetshovel on Youtube.com
• The Stripping shovel Big Brutus, a 1850-B, was built in 1962, with a 90-yard bucket. It currently sits in West Mineral, Kansas, as the huge centerpiece of a museum.
• The Bucyrus-Erie 50-R, a 55-foot-high behemoth rising 11 stories tall and housing a massive drill, was responsible for the successful rescue of two miners during the 1963 Sheppton, Pennsylvania mining disaster.^[16]
• The 1250-B/W and 1260-W walking draglines, with buckets between 33 and 45 cu yd (25 and 34 m³).
• The 5-W walking dragline, carrying a 5-cubic-yard (3.8 m³) bucket and produced until around 1970;
• Marion Power Shovel Company of Marion, Ohio designed the crawler transporter used to carry Saturn V rockets and Space Shuttles to their launch pads.