Gathering for its 80th anniversary on Sunday, Parks Victoria’s Brian Pritchard recalled to a crowd how his family had a personal link to the dredge.

“I probably wouldn’t be here without the dredge,” he said. “My grandparents moved from Melbourne to work on it and I’m pretty pleased I’ve got my mum here today with me today as well.”

Mr Pritchard’s mother, Joan Pritchard, moved to Eldorado in 1935.

Her father, Bill McGuffie, had secured a job working with horses to clear land for the dredge to work.

He then served as a night watchman, guarding the dredge from any troublemakers.

“It was only once that hoodlums tried to get on it on a boat,” Mrs Pritchard said.

Mrs Pritchard remembered when one man tragically died near the dredge.

The worker was in a boat about to board when a bank collapsed on him.

“He came up in one of the buckets – just as if he was sitting in a lounge chair,” Mrs Pritchard said. “It was a real moonlight night and very eerie.”

But that was the only death associated with the dredge while it operated until 1954.

Carl Doring, an expert in engineering heritage, said the dredge was of great historical value.

“It is by far the most intact dredge of its type in Australia,” he said. “It was one of the major forms of gold mining and it had a big social impact on the town.” 

It produced about $28 million worth of gold.