![]() ![]() Gold panning is available at stand-up troughs under the stacker of the dredge, and modern recreational mining is provided on historic gold producing claims nearby. Adjoining the dredge and throughout the Gold Camp/Chicken RV park, an outdoor Mining Museum with an assemblage of historical gold rush equipment and buildings, including a vintage machine shop, can be viewed for free. ![]() It is the most complete bucket line gold dredge open to the public in Alaska and perhaps North America. The dredge was opened to the public in August 2005. It was moved a short distance again in 2009, floated to it's present location. In 1998, after sitting idle for 31 years, the million pound dredge was moved one mile in one piece, on a trailer constructed in place, to the Chicken Gold Camp & Outpost. The 3-cubic-foot dredge (measurement of the bucket capacity), the smallest in the FE Co.'s fleet of 8 behemoth gold mining machines, mined over 55,000 ounces of gold in the eight years on Chicken Creek, equivalent to roughly 65-70 million dollars in gold at modern prices. The dredge commenced operations on lower Chicken Creek in September and worked approximately five months every year thereafter until October 1967, when it produced its final cleanup. The following year it was disassembled, trucked over the Alaska and Taylor Highway to Chicken, Alalska and reassembled over a 3 month span. It was assembled there, and operated until 1958. (USSR&M), was built by the Yuba Manufacturing Company in California, and was shipped to Pedro Creek north of Fairbanks in 1938. The Pedro Dredge, originally owned by the Fairbanks Exploration Company (FE Co.), a subsidiary of the United States Smelting Refining & Mining Co. ![]()
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