The tear-out has begun!

[Digger_O'Dell]

Hi all,
This week marks the start of the tear-out of the private street between buildings at the brewery. It used to be a public street dating back to the early 1800s, but sometime in the 70's it was cut off for freeway building, then made private when the brewery took over the area some years back. So far they have only ripped out the curb strips and the concrete slabs on half the loading docks along the side of the street. Seeing lots of old Cream City brick (started being made in 1835) was a great indication of age. In about the 30 minutes it took me to detect the small area I didn't find much old stuff, but I did find my 2nd ever fatty IH. Sorry to say it's too beat up to get a date off it, but the wreath does have the shield putting it between 1860-64. I can only see the highlights of the coin at an angle and the camera likely can't show it.
They are just starting to rip out another small section on the other side of the original street today so I'll detect that tonight after work, and hopefully it's produce some great stuff. The only downfall to the area is the amount of underground utilities and sewers directly under the street where much of the soil was probably removed at one time. But of course I'll post up anything notable I find.

[Tony Two-Cent]

A fatty Indian Head would definitely have me excited about the possibilities of what else could be there! That's a 160-year-old coin!

[Digger_O'Dell]

Tony, that was my thought exactly. Research shows there were several businesses along this short stretch of road, along with other unidentified frame buildings on the 1880s Sanborn maps. The road is also shown in a plat map showing a dense mixed commercial/residential area in the 1860s. Then there are historical notes dating at least as far back as the 1830s referring to the area as one of the earliest settlements in the settlement as it was a hilltop with great views, and also being close to the lake and river.

The rough part is that they are only tearing out small sections at a time and refilling them the next day or so. Also it's been tough with the underground high voltage utilities as the EMI is so bad the detector is useless within 20 feet of them. I've included a few photos of the work including today's tear-out work which as luck would have it, right next to the big transformers and switchgears, and runs along the underground power coming to the building where the photos were taken from. (Sorry about the window reflections)

First photo was under the loading dock slab which was only maybe 8 years old. But that's where I found the fatty, so not complaining.
Second photo is what was torn out today and I plan to detect tonight. As can be seen, it's still not part of the roadway, but close.

[wisconsin digger]

Congrats on the find and good luck on the future hunts. WD

[Pastpursuits]

This will be very interesting to follow! Congrats on the fatty and good luck on future hunts!

[Digger_O'Dell]

I detected that rectangular area last night and found absolutely nothing but trash. Further research shows that a few decades ago the homes that were there were razed to make a parking lot. My guess is they really dug dep to level the site and put down the gravel where anything that was there is long gone. Fortunately, I still have a LOT of area that they will be digging out soon that should produce big if my hunch is right. I'm really hoping to find a few bucket listers such as a trime, half dime, shield nickel, and 2 cent piece. I don't think that's too much to ask!

[badgers325]

Congrats Chris. Keep getting that Milwaukee history!!

[Digger_O'Dell]

Congrats Chris. Keep getting that Milwaukee history!!

Thanks much! This is turning out to be more of a challenge than I thought so far. They pulled out the west curbs and now I can see a cutaway of the road bed on that side. It's about 4-5 inches of blacktop, then a layer of black gravel/sand/debris, and then about a 4-5 inch thick concrete slab covering a gravel bed. The base soil is 12-18 inches down and held a few pieces of more modern trash (ie: can slaw, aluminum siding trimmings), but nothing old was found. Very odd....

[Digger_O'Dell]

Update:
Well, this is beginning to look like another big disappointment. The other day they pulled up the other half of the concrete slabs leading to the loading docks-the first half being where I found the fatty-but by the end of the day they already had all the rebar grids installed so impossible to detect.
Today they actually started on the roadway. But I found out all they are doing is stripping off about 8 inches of asphalt, leaving 1-2 inches behind. Really the only exposed dirt is around the manhole covers they have to lower, and the few deep potholes in the road. I will try to detect some tonight and maybe even try to dig through the remaining asphalt if I get a signal but I don't hold much hope. Tomorrow they are scheduled to lay down the first new layer of the roadway.
I think there may be one more section scheduled to be repaved, but again it's part of where the old parking lot was in the '40s and I don't expect to find much there even if it's dug out down to the base soil, but one never knows I guess.