What was this site?

[Shane508]

I'm checking out this site tomorrow. I'm trying to do a little research beforehand, to try to get an idea of what I'll be finding.

1938 - looks like four structures. Possibly a farm?

1971 - a town gas line was put in to the right of where the structures once stood. Now, on the other side of the gas line, there's a new building, and it looks too big to be a home or even farm.

1997 - The new structure didn't last, because it looks like the trees started taking over, likely 10-15 years prior.

2012 (and now) - Nature completely took over, but you can still see the top of the building. There's no entrance or pathway left.

I'm confident that there'll be some interesting finds, as it's likely untouched. I talked to a guy from my town that has been everywhere (every time I say "look at this site", he'll reply "been there", but this time, he was like "whoa....")

Any ideas of how I could find out what these places were? I can't really base my searches on street names or addresses, as it's basically in the middle of the woods, and it looks like there was once an entrance from the highway, and then an entrance from my street years later.

Either way, I'll post my finds tomorrow afternoon/evening.

 

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[sawmill man]

Looks like a small farm, house in the front with drive circling by the front with small shed in front, maby a tool shed/ chicken coop next off to the side, and the barn in the very back. Goodluck.

 

[cudamark]

Sometimes old insurance maps give use info.

 

[Iron Buzz]

Historic mapworks may have something, too. (Historic Map Works)

 

[RobRieman]

Good luck [emoji106] I like to find places like that with Historic Aerials. Some of them pan out and some of them totally suck.

 

[Shane508]

Historic mapworks may have something, too. (Historic Map Works)

I forgot to mention in the original post, that I tried historic map works. There were two names over that property. Vital records didn't really pull up anything.

Should be a fun hunt.

Thanks guys

 

[Lukabrazi]

Did you learn anything new from being there?

 

[Shane508]

Did you learn anything new from being there?

Here's some pics of the location once we found it:

Very nice, quiet land.

Found one cellar hole, very small though, so it was probably one of the barns. Couldn't seem to find any other cellar hole strangely, even though there were clearly 4 original structures.

Still had a well

An old vehicle. Had to have been there since at least the 70s

Here's the "new" building that was built after the other 4 disappeared

The funny thing is, we were out there for 2-3 hours, and did not find one thing. Not even a nail. I honestly don't believe this place has been hunted dry; I think that we were too busy exploring the area and enjoying what we were finding(the car, the well, cellar hole), that we didn't spend enough time actually hunting for stuff.

Now that I'm familiar with the area, I'm going back on Sunday, and am going to turn the place upside down.

 

[pa-dirt_nc-sand]

Looks like the kind of places I like to hunt. You found the well, so the home site must
be nearby. You've got to be getting a ton of iron signals at this spot? My sites like this are full of iron and I do best circling out from the stacked stones. Also try overlaying the oldest photo on Google Earth, this helps with identifying where the driveway was and other key areas so you can focus your hunt on the most productive areas. Often the structures you see in the old photos are barns and out buildings the actual home is tucked in the trees for protection from the weather.

 

[Shane508]

Good to know. Thanks for the tips. And I usually discriminate 3 or 4 levels of iron. My detector literally only beeped two times during the entire hunt. Like I said though, we weren't really in full detect-mode, more of in full-explore mode. I'll probably do no discrimination when I go back, and I'll try those tips.