To put you in the frame of mind of when this digger was being built, these were some of the events in the same time period.

On October 26, 1881, the "Gunfight at the OK Corral" took place in Tombstone Arizonia, as Wyatt Earp, his two brothers and Doc Holliday shot it out with the Ike Clanton's gang. Three members of Clanton's gang were killed; Earp's brothers were wounded.

In 1879, Thomas A. Edison demonstrated his incandescent light in Menlo Park, NJ

In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt married Alice Lee

In 1884, Democrat Grover Cleveland was elected to his first term as president, defenting Republican James G. Blaine