PARK CITY — The name alone does a pretty good job of describing one of the nastiest jobs in mining history: "mucking."
"Dirt to most people is 'muck' to a miner. It means removing the rubble from blasting in the tunnels, and it was hard, tough work by hand," said Rich "The Ole Miner" Martinez, 65, a sixth-generation Parkite who spent 48 years working in the mines here and still is employed by United Park City Mines Co.
"As you can imagine, it was hot, back-breaking and unpleasant work; and manufacturers spent many years trying to come up with a machine that would do the work of the human mucker," said Berne Schepman, past president of EIMCO Corp. of Salt Lake City, whose company in 1938 patented just such a machine, the EIMCO Rocker Shovel Loader Model 12-B.
The combined brainchild of Edwin Burt Royle and John Spence Finlay, both working in the '30s for the Anaconda company in the North Lilly Mine in Eureka, and Joseph Rosenblatt, then president of EIMCO of Salt Lake City, the loader revolutionized mining activity in the United States and around the world.
"I dare say 100 men couldn't keep up with it," Martinez said. "Where it would take men an hour to load a one-ton car, the 12-B could do it in 25 seconds."
For its role in introducing a new age in mining, the EIMCO loader was named a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers on Monday in a ceremony at the Town Lift Plaza.
The 12-B was the 212th landmark selected by the engineering society worldwide since 1971 to honor "contributions made by the technological advances of mechanical engineering and their impacts on the quality of life."
"Our selection committee spends a lot of time removing the wheat from the chaff, and the loader is pure wheat. It passed on the first bounce," said William J. Adams, San Jose, Calif., who was on hand to commemorate the loader on behalf of the engineering society's History and Heritage Program.
Adams said the 12-B was picked after an outstanding presentation by Don King, Bountiful, chairman of the History and Heritage committee of the society's Utah section.
"It is our goal to preserve and display these landmarks so the public can understand the prominent role they played in developing civilization," Adams said.
The impact of the 4,200-pound machine, whose front bucket imitates the over-the-shoulder shoveling motion of the human mucker, was powerful and enduring. By 1969, 29,000 of the loaders had been sold. Manufacturing rights were licensed to companies in Great Britain, India, South Africa and Japan. Sales and services offices were in Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Mexico, Spain and Zambia.
By 1957, EIMCO had approximately 1,900 employees and was the second largest employer in Utah, after Kennecott.
"The great thing was the loader not only made work easier, it didn't cost jobs. It made more jobs because productivity increased," Martinez said.
At its peak, South African mining interests bought about 4,000 loaders, and 3,500 of them are still working today, Schepman said.
"In 70 years, no one has come up with a better system to remove rubble in hard-rock mining," he said.
Nathan Hunt, past president (1991-92) of the American Society of Engineers, presented a plaque commemorating the 12-B to Shauna Kerr, Park City mayor-pro tem. It will be displayed, along with a 12-B loader, next to a statue of legendary Park City miner Jim Ivers in the Miners Plaza on Main Street.
"We are proud to honor these magnificent miners and their mucking machines, and we pledge to continue to cherish our mining heritage," Kerr said.
Also on hand were several members of the Rosenblatt family, most of them from the Salt Lake area.
"It's a special day and one Joseph would have been proud of," said Evelyn Rosenblatt, his widow, who had married Joseph 70 years ago to the day Monday at the Hotel Utah.
The 12-B continued to be the star of the day, leading the annual Miners Day Parade here, with Martinez riding shotgun.
Later, at the 103rd Muckers and Drillers Competition, Larry Simpson of Heber City won $400 and first place by riding the side of the 12-B and mucking one ton of dirt in 27.27 seconds. Joel Tankersley of Green River, Wyo., won $300 and second in 33.65 seconds and the Ole Miner, himself, Martinez, took $200 and third in 35.62.
"The money isn't the thing. It's the history," Martinez said. "There's 1,200 miles of tunnels under this town, and this loader's been through almost all of them."
E-MAIL: gtwyman@desnews.com