January 30, 2021 - A drag line that had been used for mining operations in Tuscarawas and Stark counties, Ohio, for more than 60 years has found a new home at the Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park near New Athens.  

Crews worked for several hours Friday to load the last two pieces of the Marion 111-M drag line onto flatbed trailers to be shipped to Harrison County.

The drag line had been sitting idle for the past six years at the old 416 Sand & Gravel plant on Goshen Hill Road just outside of New Philadelphia.

About a year ago, the owner of the machine contacted the park about donating it, said Dusty Welch, president of the Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park.

"He was very gracious to donate this machine to us, considering the value of it," Welch said. It would have been worth a considerable amount of money to have it cut up for scrap.

"We did an assessment on it, because it had sat for about six years," he said. "We checked it out and got it running. We agree to accept it."

Several parts of the drag line had been taken to New Athens in recent weeks. On Friday, a crew separated the cab from the undercarriage and put each piece on the bed of a flatbed trailer to be taken away. Each piece weighed roughly 130,000 pounds.

The museum received assistance for the project from Maple Leaf Demolition of Hinckley, Ohio; Barnhart Crane of Canton; and Howard Bowers Contracting in Wintersville.

The drag line was produced by the Marion Power Shovel Co. in 1949 and shipped by rail to a coal company in New Philadelphia. It has had various owners over the years.

"They were a very popular machine because they were fast, they were strong and they just lasted," Welch said. "They've outlasted their competition."

At one time, there were between 10 and 15 of the Marion 111-M drag lines being used in Tuscarawas County for strip mining coal.

A total of 370 of the machines were built by the company. Six are still in existence.

"I know where all six are, and I'm in the process of trying to acquire all six," Welch said.

The Harrison Coal & Reclamation Historical Park has two of them.

"The other was operational at the museum grounds for our show every year, but we had vandals that broke into the museum and stole the radiators and copper wiring out of the machine, rending it useless," he said.

Once the new drag line is operational, it will be used as a blueprint as a guide to fix the other machine. "Eventually we will have two Marion drag lines in operation," Welch said.

The Harrison Coal & Reclamation Park's mission is to preserve mining, construction, agricultural, logging, transportation and oil and gas equipment. It's collection includes a Marion 7200 drag line which had once been used by the James Brothers Coal Co. of Mineral City.

The park holds shows each year during the Memorial Day weekend and the weekend after Labor Day.

Crews load the cab of a Marion 111-M drag line onto a flatbed truck Friday near the former 416 Sand & Gravel in New Philadephia, OH.

Photo: Jim Cumings, TimesReporter.com

Crews load the cab of a Marion 111-M drag line onto a flatbed truck Friday near the former 416 Sand & Gravel in New Philadephia, OH.

Photo: Jim Cumings, TimesReporter.com