First hunt of the year-new site

Whelp, I was able to get out for nearly an hour today for a quick exploratory hunt around the brewery I work at. Mostly did the small grassy area at the farthest end of our parking lot where the Sanborn showed a carriage shop in 1890. Unfortunately I found it's a lot of fill dirt under gravel with a thin layer of actual dirt on top. The only old thing I found was a large piece of copper flashing about a foot long. Other than that I found a brass washer, 2 memorials, and a .40 cal bullet. The whole place is iron infested and littered with shallow trash-mostly liquor bottle screw caps which perfectly mimic coins.

So I don't know if I'll spend any more time there, but the property has lots of more remote small grassy areas that in no way could gather trash from passers by tossing garbage, and may also have more chance of still having the good stuff. I also got word today that the road between the buildings will be torn out and repaved this year. This used to be a city street until the freeway was built in 1974 cutting the street off, and the city making it private property. The street is part of the original city (settlement) layout and shown on the first printed map of the city dated 1836. I should have exclusive access to detect it, which I'm pretty sure has never been done, and from what I can see was last paved well before the freeway was built.

Going to have to wait quite a while I think to detect again as there's a winter storm bearing down on my area early tomorrow thats expected to drop 5-7" of snow. Eww!

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That repave sounds promising. Nice research on the whole area. Its bound to pay off!

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Originally Posted by OxShoeDrew

That repave sounds promising. Nice research on the whole area. Its bound to pay off!

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Thanks Drew! Just verified today with out maintenance manager that this year we will have a full tearout of the street (about 1.5 blocks) and the paved turn around area for the semi's which used to be homes/yards dating back to the early 1800's. I'm really stoked to have a chance to detect this big time capsule!

How do people detect tear outs? Around here they're either working on it or have put orange tape around the work area. Do you watch everyday until you see dirt and try to get there before they repave?

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Originally Posted by OxShoeDrew

How do people detect tear outs? Around here they're either working on it or have put orange tape around the work area. Do you watch everyday until you see dirt and try to get there before they repave?

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On normal street tearouts I'll usually see them in passing and stop when I get the chance outside of their working hours. I have looked at the government websites to look for posted street construction schedules, but it's spotty at best.

I have been to one sidewalk tearout in the older part of the city where I got there first thing in the morning and waited until the crew was a few slabs ahead and detected once it was safe to do so and got the all clear from the crew. They were just as interested in my finds as I was judging by their curiosity. Unfortunately it wasn't long until I had maybe 5 more people show up to detect the same slab space as it was opened up. I gave up and just waited for them to move on, then went back over the areas the detected right behind them and cleaned up everything they missed. In that case I managed to find the only silver of the day and only my 2nd seated.

As for this tearout at the brewery, it's in a fenced in area on private property with secured access and a security guard on duty. I'm the only one who will have access to it other than the other employees of which I'm pretty sure none hunt. My guess is it'll probably take a few days just to take out the pavement and probably the gravel bed underneath as it's poorly graded and crowned right over a sewer line that was added much later. So all that sewer line will have to be redone as well to level out the manholes and maybe the utility access covers. It's going to be a huge project, but due to the extremely bad conditions and steep sloping of the road it's dangerous to drive on much less to use a forklift.

Promising research for sure! Keep us posted. You have a knack for finding the goods along old byways/streets!

John

Nice little hour hunt. Good luck when you get to the tear out. There should be plenty of oldies under the pavement.