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The Keystone Driller on display in Haines, a green-painted steam drilling rig on iron wheels with a timber frame, vertical boiler and stack, the harbour and mountains behind
Other Steam · Steam drilling rig

Keystone Driller

A steam-powered, self-propelled cable drill used for gold prospecting in the Chilkat Valley in the early 1900s, now on display in Haines, Alaska.

Above: The Keystone Driller on display in Haines, September 2015. Photo: by author.

Draft record. The particulars below have not yet been checked against primary sources and may change. Corrections are welcome.

This steam-powered, portable drilling machine was used in the Chilkat Valley for gold prospecting in the early 1900s. It could be driven to the worksite under its own power, at two speeds of 2 and 5 miles per hour. The Keystone design was developed and patented in 1892 by Robert M. Downie and built by the Keystone Driller Company of Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.

How a cable drill works

The drill bores a hole by repeatedly raising and dropping a hollow drilling tool. The cable runs from the main cable reel, through pulleys on a hinged beam, over the mast-head pulley and down the hole. A cam wheel raises and lowers the hinged beam, which produces the up-and-down motion of the tool. Earth brought up in the hollow tool was sampled for gold.

The sign at the site shows the drill at work at Dalton Cache, near 40 Mile on the Haines Highway, in 1937.

Elevation

An elevation drawing of the Keystone Driller will appear here.

Sources

  1. Interpretive sign, "The Keystone Driller", at the display in Haines, Alaska (photographed September 15, 2015). Cites a 1937 photograph of the drill at Dalton Cache, near 40 Mile on the Haines Highway (Harriett Jurgeleit collection), and a 1906 Driller Manual.