Drill Carrier Corporation and the Mechanization of Rock Excavation, c. 1960 to 1965

Gardner Denver Drill Carrier Corp

Photograph

American rock drilling photo archive, c. 1960 to 1965, documenting the mechanization of blast hole drilling as self propelled crawler rigs replaced equipment that had to be towed, separately positioned, or moved between holes by additional machinery. The photographs center on Drill Carrier Corporation and Gardner Denver equipment marked AT 1600, ATD 3100, and ATD 3200, machines designed to carry, position, and operate heavy percussion drills across broken and sloping ground. Drill Carrier’s 1958 patent stated the purpose directly: a self propelled, self adjusting drill carriage that could be moved, positioned, and operated by one person, reducing labor in one of the basic operations preceding blasting. The technology entered widespread construction use during the postwar infrastructure expansion, when the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 authorized 41,000 miles of Interstate highways and $25 billion in federal spending, generating enormous demand for road cuts, bridge approaches, tunnels, quarries, and other large scale rock excavation. Archive shows the machinery that converted rock drilling from a labor intensive positioning problem into a mobile mechanized system during the end of the postwar infrastructure boom.


Photo archive of 10 silver gelatin photographs, 10" x 8" with one 4.5" x 7.5", United States, c. 1960 to 1965. The photographs move between engineering studies and field operation: close views isolate pneumatic valves, pressure vessels, hoses, cylinders, track drives, sprockets, and feed mechanisms; others show complete crawler drills with long articulated booms and independently driven tracks. Model markings include “AT 1600,” “ATD 3100,” and “ATD 3200,” while one verso bears a “Drill Carrier Corp.” file stamp and number. Field photographs show operators positioning vertical drills on steep excavated slopes amid cranes, trucks, blasted rock, and large construction cuts, while a sepia toned view records a lattice boom crane and crew working a precipitous mountain excavation.

Drill Carrier Corporation announced its Roanoke County, Virginia plant in 1957 specifically to assemble equipment for heavy rock drilling, three years after John W. Burress filed the company’s patent for a tracked, air powered drill carriage. By 1961 Gardner Denver was advertising its Air Trac line for open pit mining, quarrying, and general construction, promoting the ATD 3000 as a swing boom crawler with automatic hydraulic power positioning; a surviving 1964 Gardner Denver manual identifies the succeeding ATD 3100 as an Air Trac drill carrier. The photographs record that transition at machine level: crawler traction moved the drill from hole to hole, pneumatic power drove the equipment, and hydraulic positioning placed the feed against rock without the separate towing and repeated manual setup required by earlier drilling systems. Light surface wear, occasional creasing, minor edge curl, and handling marks; one print with pronounced sepia toning. Overall in very good condition.

Item #23908

Price: $550.00