Manufactured in 1924 by the Bay City Shovels Company, this excavator was powered by a McCormick Deering 20, which provided motive power while its PTO provided the power to run the shovel itself. The machine came in several possible configurations: Straight Boom, Scoop/Digging Shovel or Excavator. The running gear was also configurable as it could be run on either wheels or tracks.
Bay City Shovels Co.
The Bay City Shovels was established in 1913, as the Bay City Dredge Works, by William W. Billington and William Burnett. The Company's principal product at that time was a unique machine designed for dredging purposes, hence the name. However, over time they expanded into making shovel machines, and in 1929 the company was renamed the “Bay City Shovels.” Like so many other companies that were successful early on, they lost market share and eventually were bought out by a larger firm. Unit Carne & Shovel Corporation took over Bay City Shovels in 1960, but continued to operate it under the original Bay City Shovels name, but with all new officers from Unit Crane replacement former managers of the plant. Six years later, in 1966, the Manitowoc Corporation purchased the Bay City operations, and they ran the company under the name of Bay City-Manitowoc Corporation for three years, and it was finally shut down bring an ending shovel manufacturing in Bay City.
During the company's earliest years, it became well known for its walking dredge crane, which was quite a unique design, as the body of the crane or shovel was supported by two huge supports that spanned a large gap and slowly moved it along as it dug out a new channel or removed dirt from an existing one. The design was updated in 1916, Carl F. Wilson, who had it patented.
They produced 267 of these walking dredges, which they advertised often in national magazines, but I suspect that in later most of their sales came from awareness within the industry that they were the source for this type of specialty crane.
One of these dredges continues to catch attention today, as it is preserved as a landmark in the Collier-Seminole State Park, near Naples, Florida, which it helped create.
Because of its unique design and capabilities, this crane built in 1924 was designated a Mechanical Engineering Landmark (#172) by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1994.
From the Bay Journal