Those steam shovels were built thousands of miles north of Panama at the city of South Milwaukee's Bucyrus Steam Shovel and Dredge Company. “Bucyrus manufactured the steam shovels in South ...

Ken McCrary, 73, and Ed Kimball, 19, are the museum’s steam shovel instructors. It takes two instructors because it takes at least two people to operate the 1932 Bucyrus-Erie 50-B steamer.

Bucyrus, once known as Bucyrus-Erie, was a manufacturing firm based in South Milwaukee that made mining equipment, including the shovels that helped build the Panama Canal. It was acquired by ...