Big Muskie: The Biggest Machine That Ever Walked Ohio (and What Killed It)

In 1969, a high school marching band played a concert inside a bucket. That bucket belonged to Big Muskie, the Bucyrus-Erie 4250-W, the largest walking dragline ever built. It weighed 13,500 tons, stood 22 stories tall, and moved about twice as much earth as the Panama Canal while stripping coal in southeast Ohio. Thirty years later it was blown down and sold for scrap for $700,000.

This video covers:
- the economics that called for Big Muskie
- the machine itself
- Ohio's other giant shovels, including the I-70 myth
- the man who died working on it
- the changes that killed it: acid rain, Wyoming coal, reclamation law and the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments

CHAPTERS
0:00 A marching band in a bucket
0:37 The math that built a monster
1:38 The machine
2:47 Ohio's giants (and the I-70 myth)
3:32 The cost
3:51 The world changes
5:05 Six seconds

SOURCES
- Martinka, P. D. (1969). "Central Ohio Coal Company's Mine Expansion Program." AIME, via OneMine
- Wikipedia: Big Muskie; Central Ohio Coal Company; Muskingum Electric Railroad; The Silver Spade; GEM of Egypt; The Wilds
- Ohio Department of Natural Resources historical marker "Big Muskie / Coal Mining in Ohio" (HMdb 283625)
- The Ohio Newsroom / WYSO, "Meet 'Big Muskie'" (Aug. 22, 2025)
- Ohio Magazine, "Big Muskie's Bucket"
- Ohio Cooperative Living, "Big memories"
- Clio, "The Big Muskie at Miner's Memorial Park"
- Roadside America, "Big Muskie's Bucket"
- little-mountain.com, "The Big Muskie: Remembering the walking giant"
- PopHistoryDig, "Giant Shovel on I-70: Ohio Strip Mine Fight, 1973"
- POWER Magazine, on the retirement of Muskingum River Unit 5
- AEP news release on the Muskingum Mine workforce reduction (1999)
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, historical electricity generation

PHOTOS
- EPA DOCUMERICA photographs by Erik Calonius, 1973, National Archives (public domain)
- Vintage Big Muskie postcards via DPLA / Wikimedia Commons (no known restrictions)
- Brian M. Powell, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Toni Leland, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Eric Gunderson, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Charles Barilleaux, CC BY 2.0
- Csynnes, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Jim Boyd, CC BY 3.0
- Bikingshaun, CC BY 3.0
- Jeff Kubina, CC BY-SA 2.0
- James St. John, CC BY 2.0
- Roseohioresident, public domain

All via Wikimedia Commons. Maps were drawn from U.S. Census and Natural Earth data. Coalfield, plume and route shapes are simplified illustrations.

MUSIC & VOICE
- Original music generated with Artlist (Lyria 3 Pro)
- Narration generated with Artlist (voice: Mentor)