Big Brutus Inc — Attraction in West Mineral

Big Brutus is a great attraction. I would give that itself five stars any other time we have been there. We attended Brutus Fest this weekend. Overall a good event, but I could not believe how badly we were treated when it came time to eat. There is a pavilion in the middle of the event with picnic tables. Other than that, there were only four other picnic tables for people to set and eat. We entered the pavilion and we were treated terribly by a woman in a pink shirt who declared the pavilion was supposed to be for a private party. She said we could set on one half but not the other. I let it slide even though my little boy was nearly in tears because he thought we had done something wrong and were in trouble. We sat down and started eating and then another woman started moving tables and was telling everyone to get out of the pavilion because it was reserved for the miner’s reunion. Not roped off. Not one sign. Nothing. I refused to get up until we were finished eating. Another woman in a Big Brutus employee shirt sat behind us, loudly talking about how this reunion occurs every year and how everyone attending should know that, and pretty well everyone coming in to find a table was ignorant. I’m not passive aggressive like that woman, so I told her exactly what I thought. We paid $10 a head to get into a highly advertised event, that made NO mention of the reunion, and this event didn’t even have seating to accommodate 20 people! The pavilion should have been roped off if it was private, and to treat the families that paid money to get in so nasty was unacceptable. Big failure on the event staff and big failure on the bitter women running...

I hadn't been here in years and I had forgotten how big this thing really is! Took my kids for an end of summer road trip to a place I planned on being low on visitors. Yay covid. Big Brutus was well worth the time and the trip! My son loves all things mechanical and was super excited to see all of the models and antique machinery. It was a nice time with lots to learn and see.

We got to sit in the cab and pretend to drive. No one gets to go out on the boom anymore. That used to be a thing you could do, but legend has it someone tried to do a base jump without permission, after hours, and his chute didn't open. Sad story. Extra sad is that the family allegedly sued the museum for that guy's errant decision making. No more boom walks.

To my surprise, the have an RV park on site as well. So if you are looking for somewhere to take your RV, this might be an option for you. Nice little gift shop with cute miner hats for the tots. My son dropped his on our tile and broke the light off, but Gorilla Glue fixed it easily.

The trip down was pretty nice also. Easy pit stops, historic sites... There's some excellent antiquing and really good butcher shops along 69 highway if you know what to look for. Take a cooler and stock up!

If you are interested in a day trip, definitely consider Big Brutus and the small towns...

Stayed overnight at the RV park on our way through KS. If you need a stopover and have the time to chill for a bit in the morning, I recommend staying here. All sites are $35/night despite what the website says. They are all full hook-up sites. Site 13 was level enough not to need blocks, and gravel sites with some grass between sites. Big Brutus is why you come here, though the stars are pretty wild too as there are not a lot of lights around. This machine looks huge from the sites. When you walk toward it, it just keeps getting bigger. You realize that you were still pretty far away from it. Just the tracks, (which are duallys!) are just under 6’ tall! If you stay in the park, you get VIP access to the shovel. There are other large machines and pieces on the property as well as a well-stocked museum. The lovely lady who runs the museum gave us a history lesson while checking out. It was so cool the hear how Big Brutus was shipped here on 150 train cars, took 95 people a year to assemble, and his job was to dig coal in a ten-mile radius of where he now sits. He dug many of the nearby lakes as well. You may not think that you want to know more about this electric shovel, but once you hear it, the stories...