Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Nostalgic way to dig a pond?

or just plain painful? Coming up at an auction near DFW:
International Dragline anyone?


A nice steam powered tractor, you could fill it from the pond!

Or how anout some old single cylinder hit and miss engines to power pumps and so forth?

Neat stuff. However, I've hit the point (age?)where I look for stuff to work with instead of to work on.

Not to nit pick, but I have to since subjects on this board rarely venture into my field of expertise. Photo 3 is not a steam engine. It's an Avery gas tractor. Actually started on gas and then run on kerosene.

Bullhead, do you know how old any of these are?

The power unit on the dragline looks pretty similar to a McCormick Deering(division of IHC) 10-20 tractor which was built from about 1921 to 1933. The Avery would be from about 1915 to 1921. The one cylinder engine in the middle is a John Deere model E. They were made from 1923 to 1946, but their heyday was in the 20s and early 30s (before REA). The other engines are probably similar age.

Thanks for the correction. Always looking to learn something new. I guess the auction house could list it as a hybrid vehicle .

If you have some way of finding out, report back what that Avery brings. Some of them will go over six figures.

Whoa, that tractor is cool! My grandpa had an obsession over old tractors. My mother was an artist and drew a number of different types and years for him. Very cool.

Ever hear of Grand Lake in Ohio. Can you believe they dug a 17,500 acre lake without machines? You want to be Nostalgic use a shovel. Here is some info.

Grand Lake was constructed from 1837 to 1845 as a feeder for the Miami-Erie Canal System. It has 52 miles miles of shoreline and is approximately 9 miles long and 3 miles wide.

For years the 17,500 acre reservoir was the largest artificial body of water in the world. And even today it's the largest body of water in the world, built without the use of machinery.

Seventeen hundred men worked from sunrise to sunset for as little as thirty cents a day and a jigger of whiskey, which was thought to prevent malaria, to construct the reservoir.

All you need is a shovel and whiskey!

Is that the one in Celina, OH? I used to work for Celina Insurance Group and visited the home office fairly often. The residents always said that the lake got rather pungent in the summers. Pretty interesting facts on it, though. Stuff I'd never head before.

Yes it is in Celina Ohio. Used to go there every year for about 5 years. Amazes me to think it was dug without machines. Water is really green like it was dyed for St. Patrick's Day. Greenest I have ever seen. Supposedly green from all the fertilizer from all the farms that surround it. Believe they are having some major water issues right now.

Yeah, that is some flat land there so it's not surprising that they get lots of runoff. Again, pretty amazing factoid on it being dug by hand.

Wow. I got a buddy in Ohio. I'll have to check in with him and see if he knows the story .... and schedule a trip out to visit the lak...I mean him.

Wikipedia says it's 13,500 acres and they got paid a handsome wage of 35 cents a day, not just a measly 30.

Seriously, though, here's the link to the wiki info. It's very shallow and in a sad state right now. Pollution problems apparently. Only carp, catfish, and gizzard shad. It'd be really cool if they could restore it....by hand of course.

I like hearing about stories like that, they help motivate me, since I will be building ponds manually.

Was it all by humans with shovels, or did they also use horses with slip scrapers and such?
Malaria in Ohio??

Still a big threat hereabouts.

Where's my bottle of Jack? Can't be too careful.

The dragline with 180 degrees of swing looks like a product of Austin-Western. You could get them equipped with a front shovel too. The one in your photo may have an I.H. engine in it. On old engines, the name of the manufacturer was often displayed on the top radiator tank which may lead you to think that was who made the whole machine. A steam powered tractor will make your pond in the form of a crater when it explodes if the water level in the boiler is allowed to run low. Four people where killed by a steam powered tractor at a fair in Ohio about 10 years ago when this exact thing happened.