Scribe said:
Great topic ((Randy))!
There are also events such as fires that have caused caches. I grew up near Duluth MN with stories of the “Great Fires”. Off the top of my head I can’t remember the exact dates of the fires but the light from one fire were reported being seen as far away as Iowa (BIG FIRE). People saw the fires coming and had warnings via telegraph. Some tried to find a safe place to hide and others ran. Both groups couldn’t take everything with them so they took more transportable items (cash) and some hid what they could hide fast before the flames reached them. For the people that survived they came back to find everything had been wiped out…everything. Few to any landmarks really remained. An older person I knew talked about her grandparents not being able to find where they had buried the heirloom silverware set and how mad the wife was at the husband for not taking it with them when they ran.
Even if the people didn’t hide their property I’m sure many still couldn’t find it. As I have been told a burning building interior will fall in on itself. Anything that wasn’t destroyed by fire would have been buried under the debris. After the fires it was hard to even figure out where some of the streets had been much less figuring out which smoldering plot of land was your property.
Sounds like you are talking of the Great Chicago Fire, which occurred simultaneously with the Peshtigo fires. Impossible for most people to understand how quickly these fires occurred. In Peshtigo, people standing in the streets suddenly burst into flame, as did buildings. But there were over 10 widely-spaced communities that were suddenly NOT, and hundreds of fatalities.
These and other suggestions from thousand's of square miles suggest the fires were started by multiple meteorite strikes. Forget bullet speeds. Meteorites that break apart in the upper atmosphere have been documented travelling more than 160,000 mph just before impact.
Forget the song, O'Leary's cow didn't start the fire.
When you have fires breaking out on both sides of Green Bay within seconds of each other, the logical reason remains meteorites.
The fire storms travelled hundreds of miles an hour. Only similar occurrence in nature was the speed of the lehar produced by the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980, which traveled 500-750 mph.
Back on topic, caches left behind by fire, flood, war, storm, no nearby bank, banks not reliable, little money in circulation: you get the idea. Add your own. Choose one and start researching.