Scavenging

Strange Find in Ohio

A man’s mysterious find has launched a “buried-treasure rush”  in Ohio. According to the Ashtabula Star-Beacon, “Darren Tackett discovered a piece of history yesterday.” In Indian Trails Park (pictured at left) on the Ashtabula Gulf, Tackett found a “metal wheel with 12 wooden spokes around a metal hub. The wheel is 30 inches in diameter and, although much of the metal is rusted away, has a lip suggestive of a railroad car wheel.

“News of the finding seems to have sparked a buried treasure ‘gold rush’ to the gulf. Mike Wayman, Ashtabula Township Park Commission, said he saw a man heading down the steps to the Gulf off South Main Friday morning with shovel in hand. Wayman said the Park Commission asks that any artifacts dug up on the park property in the Gulf be donated to the commission for display. A finders/keepers concept may not apply to property retrieved from the park land….

“Tackett found the artifact buried in mud and shale on the west side of the river, upstream from the South Main railroad trestle. Although he walks the area almost every day, this was the first time he had seen the wheel, about 8 inches of which were sticking out of the mud.”

It took an hour and a half to dig out, and weighs around 100 pounds: “Tackett wondered if the wheel was off the Lake Shore & Michigan Souther Railroad train that plunged into the Gulf on Dec. 29, 1876. However, the site of that disaster was farther downstream from South Main. Further, the intense fires from that event would have burned out the spokes.”

Interesting, but remember: Another of our scavenging commandments is: Don’t remove historical or archaeological artifacts from areas where they are protected.