By the late 1800s the earlier mining booms were over. Dredge boats, which employed relatively few people, began operating in the area in 1898 and worked the valley floor until 1942. Thinking the Tiger Placers Company would provide jobs during the national depression, Breckenridge Town officials allowed the Tiger #1 Gold Dredge to chew its way from the northern town limits through to the south end of Main Street. The two-story, pontoon boat supported an armature that carried a line of moving buckets that was capable of digging up placer mining ground to depths of 70 feet in the riverbed. The dredge removed all vegetation and buildings in its path. The riverbed was literally turned upside-down. Fine soils of the river bottom were either sent to the depths below or deposited downstream as sediment. The riverbed and bedrock below were dredged up to the surface. As a result, few historic buildings survived on the west side of the Blue River. World War II finally silenced the dredge, and the population in Breckenridge declined to approximately 254 individuals.
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