This rare film from 1935 promotes the Ruth Dredger, a trench digging and clearing machine that was built in California in the 1920s. It begins showing “old model Ruths” at the start, before moving on to show the latest “continuous action” models, including a factory-new Ruth being delivered to a customer in Nebraska via railroad. Some of the dredgers shown include one working on irrigation canals near Yuma, Arizona and at (8:33) Coolidge, Arizona.
The Ruth Dredger was invented in 1906 by Charles H. Ruth, a blacksmith in the Imperial Valley of California. At that time, huge amounts of silt brought down by the Colorado River were being deposited in the Valley and repeatedly clogging the many irrigation ditches fed by the river. The Ruth Dredger proved highly successful at clearing these ditches and it wasn’t long before Ruth Dredgers were at work in many states constructing and cleaning irrigation ditches, cleaning canal banks, and building berms and levees to control flooding. In 1939, Bucyrus-Erie acquired the rights to its manufacture and commenced building the machines under the Bucyrus-Ruth trade name. Model HU was powered by a 32-flywheel-hp Cat D4400. Variable digging speeds were available from about 3 to 80 fpm, and the entire machine tipped the scales at 18 tons. Very few of the Bucyrus-Ruth machines were sold so, with the onset of World War II, the company officially discontinued the product at the end of 1942.
Read more here: https://www.constructionequipment.com/ruth-dredger-served-niche-market
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
