This historical marker is in Golden in Jefferson County Colorado From the mid-1800s, to the mid-1900s, gold mining and dredging represented an economic boon to the Clear Creek region. Courtesy Denver Public Library, Western History Department. Eleanor #2 was sent to Sacramento, California. Eleanor #1 can be seen today as the Reiling Dredge in French Gulch near Breckenridge, Colorado. In 1907, the company left Arapahoe Bar and dismantled the dredges for redeployment. Also, the flour gold proved to be too fine in particulate size for the technology to be able to recover it all from the soils at Arapahoe Bar. Golden area farmers refused to sell land to the company. Unfortunately, while the dredges were good for the economy, they also ruined fertile bottoms soils, making the land unfarmable forever. The dredges sat in river ponds as their large conveyor bucket lines scooped soil from the river and deposited tailings behind as great dunes of cobblestone. Eleanor #1 dredged the north bank of the creek and Eleanor #2 dredged the south bank. The dredges were used to scoop the rich soil from the riverbed and sift out the “flour gold.” The dredging company build two large gold dredges, Eleanor #1 and Eleanor #2, the largest vessels to ever float on Clear Creek. The Company wanted to mine the bar to its fullest potential, using the then-new invention of gold dredging barges. Reiling, purchased the historic Arapahoe Bar in Clear Creek, which had been mined various ways and times since 1858. In 1904, the National Dredging Company, led by Herman J. From the mid-1800s, to the mid-1900s, gold mining and dredging represented an economic boon to the Clear Creek region.
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