Another forgotten town...*Updated 4/23*

Over the winter, I researched the old local county maps and some history books and found an old forgotten town that was platted in 1892 that’s currently just a farmer’s field. At the height of the town’s existence, it had a rail depot, church, school, post office, telegraph office, grocery, lodge hall, and an industrial company, as well as residential homes. When I talked to the property owner for permission, he said many of the buildings were still standing into the 1950s, but “that’s when my grand-dad watched the tornado go through”! Sure enough, aerial images show buildings on the site in the 1950s, but in the 1960s they’re all gone.

Fellow forum member Dan B. was kind enough to invite me out to a similar “ghost” town that he had researched a few weeks ago (see this thread), so this was the perfect opportunity for me to return the favor - I invited him to join me on the site, and he and I met on Thursday morning to hunt the site for the first time. I was pretty excited about the location, and I was admittedly pleased to hear Dan wasn’t aware of the spot despite his extensive knowledge of the area. When we arrived, the evidence of previous habitation was obvious to a detectorist’s eye - old brick, broken porcelain and china, old colored glass and broken bottle tops carpeted the surface of the field. In fact, through the day I had several eyeball finds like a porcelain button, clay tobacco pipe stems, an intact fancy bottle stopper made of glass, etc.

My very first signal on starting to hunt turned out to be an 1892 Indian Head only about 2” down, matching the date the town was platted! Dan was the big winner on the hunt though - he pulled a nice brass lock out of the ground, his first. Then not even 15-20 minutes later, I hear him exclaim “it’s another one!” Sure enough, an even nicer brass lock! As Dan said - all we need to do now is find the cash box they were holding shut! A little later, he made the find of the day - a late 1700s Spanish copper 4 maravedis coin! Check out the photos and ID in this thread. Neither one of us knew for sure what it was when we pulled it out of the hole (only a couple inches down, too), but we both knew it was good

I ended up with 3 Indians total, all pretty toasty: 1892, 1895, & 1899. The Winchester 10 gauge Rival headstamp was only manufactured between 1894-1897, so it fits nicely into the town’s range. The 1” diameter solid brass ball is a bit of a mystery - I’m guessing a ball bearing for either railroad or industrial machinery? Another mystery item is the small, circular, coin shaped object marked with a C and G and what looks like a crescent moon along the edge. Some other interesting keepers from a pouch full of relics is part of a cooper spoon or fork, a flat button, bullet casings, and maybe a piece to a pocket knife.

Overall a very fun hunt, although definitely a challenge among all the trash from the long gone buildings. No silver yet, but 18th century Spanish cooper makes up for that quite nicely! Plus we have a long way to go - I’d be surprised if we covered even 5% of the town’s area. And it’s a little bit of a race against time - the farmer will be itching to plant soon with the weather warming up, and then we’ll be stuck waiting for fall. We’ll be back to hit the field again tomorrow morning - can’t wait to see what else is waiting for us! Although I told Dan he’s only allowed to bring his pinpointer (without batteries) and a plastic kid’s sand shovel to my permissions from now on!