For 30 years it was known as the 8th Wonder of the World. In an era when coal provided countless benefits to the quality of life in America, 'Big Muskie' stood proud as the largest - if not finest - accomplishment of the industrial age.

The statistics were awesome; At 487 feet long and 230 feet high, Big Muskie was the largest mobile land machine in the world. Its massive 220-cubic-yard bucket lifted 325-ton loads as high as a 33-story building and dropped them two city blocks away. Travelers driving along I-77 would often pull off the road and watch in amazement as it roamed the Ohio countryside, removing dirt and shale overburden at Central Ohio Coal Company's Muskingum Mine.

Yet even these words cannot provide true perspective. Look closely at the top photo… you'll notice a small rig to the lower right of Big Muskie. That is a 45-ton crane with 80-foot boom, a piece of equipment that would easily dominate most work sites.

Throughout the 1960's, 70's and 80's, Big Muskie moved over 483 million cubic yards of earth - twice the amount moved to create the 40-mile Panama Canal. However, the passing of The Clean Air Act in 1990 resulted in decreased demand for high-sulfur Ohio coal, and shortly thereafter Big Muskie was retired. Despite ambitious preservation efforts lasting several years, the dragline proved too costly to renovate, and in 1999 Mayer Pollock Steel Corp. began salvage operations. One of their first decisions was to contract ISEE members Jim and Jared Redyke of Dykon to fell the 310-foot boom and gantry assembly with explosives.

After thoroughly reviewing this unique task, Jim determined that the safest and most efficient way to accomplish his goal was to blast the gantry at its base, thereby allowing the boom to pull the entire support system clear of the main structure. In a classic case of 'brain over brawn', Dykon used only 20 pounds of 3200-grain RDX shaped charges to bring the 1.5-million-pound boom and gantry assembly tumbling to the ground.

In most cases, a well-executed explosive demolition project is greeted with cheers and hand-shaking. However this blast met with silence from the 200 spectators in attendance, and later Jim and Jared took a moment to reflect on what was truly the end of an era.