In this concluding column, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson Putt continue to share their memories of dredging the Lehigh River. The Putts write:

The dredging provided employment for many local residents.

Mr. Putt remembers Otto Hontz, who lived along the Lehigh River; Albert “Abie” Bachman, who lived in Walnutport and drove a dump truck that hauled the coal to Palmerton; Sen. Smith, who ran a tugboat; and a man called Brownie, who worked the vibrating tables screening the debris from the coal.

When pumps wore out, Dieter’s Foundry in Cherryville had molds to make new pumps. The foundry provided the new large pumps and other parts that were needed. Suction pipes were attached to the pump and there was a big propeller in the pump. The back of the pump boat held the controls to get the coal from the river bottom. There were ropes tied to trees and the ropes allowed the scow to move back and forth down the river. To empty the scow, a scraper line came out and was cranked to get the coal to go up into the troughs. It was very cold working on the river. When the weather was cold, there was a pot belly stove in the front of the pump boat’s enclosure, and they would break the big pieces of coal to use in the stove.

As a side light, during World War II, the Dieter’s Foundry supplied land mines for the U. S. military.

Unfortunately, the foundry closed in 1981. Today, the property is the home of Bethany Wesleyan Church.

When the baseball fields at Treichlers were being developed, Wilson and Vince Dieter donated their time and materials to haul piles of fine sand stockpiled on the property. The fine sand was used along the fence line at the Little League fields in Treichlers.

There were many hardships with the work. There were floods and ice jamming up on the river. One flood caused the loss of a new tugboat, which was washed down the river. Before recovery efforts could be made, scavengers took the motor and various parts of the tugboat, and it meant starting over.

The dredging took place from March to October, or when the river would freeze. The dredging operation continued until 1959. Before the Clean Rivers Act, the waste of rocks and sand were returned to the river, but after the Clean Rivers Act, it reduced the amount of coal waste in the rivers. Debris taken out of the rivers was not allowed to be put back into the rivers. Stockpiles were made of the debris taken from the river on the property. The coal in the river had dwindled.

When the dredging ceased in 1959, the family decided to invest in trucks to transport coal from the mines into the zinc company.

We thank the Putt family for their kindness and cooperation in writing this article.

The dredges and foundry are gone, a faded chapter in the history of the Lehigh River.