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Kathy Weiser, May, 2004
By the late 1800's
Elizabethtown was nearly deserted as placer mining had pretty much
"panned out." However, dredges revived the town in 1900, bringing new life
to the community. In 1901, the Oro Dredging
Company began the work of erecting a monstrous dredge, fondly
christened "Eleanor." The enormous piece of equipment, born of
the machine era, posed numerous challenges in its transportation
through the mountain passes to
E-town. Piece by piece, the dredge was hauled from the railhead at Springer
via mountain roads and water. The dredging company built a
dam three miles from
E-town
and hauled the biggest pieces on a large boat. By August,
1901 the dredge began production and handled up to four thousand cubic
yards of dirt a day. In its first year of operation, the Eleanor
paid for herself and cleared $100,000, mining a remarkable one-quarter
of all the gold found in
New Mexico
that year.
However, tragedy struck
E-town in
1903 when a
devastating fire destroyed most of the town. At about the same time, the owner of the dredge mortgaged Eleanor
to get money to finance a similar venture in
Colorado. Unfortunately, the next year was unprofitable for Eleanor, and the
owner ended up having to take bankruptcy. The dredging operation
finally died in 1905 and Eleanor was left to rust and sink into the
sands of Moreno Creek. The buried remains of Eleanor remain
there but no trace of her can be seen now.
Read about
Elizabethtown
Read about New
Mexico
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