Newspapers regularly publish stories about unexpected finds. At this writing, we are preparing a story about the unexpected find of a more than 100-year-old missionary society minute book. Sometimes the stories involve Indian relics, finds in what apparently were once trash dumps or archeological discoveries like the mastodons of Jewell County and the creatures near Angus.
Earlier this fall, a Superior resident bought in a family Bible and a more than a century old medical book found as part of a furnace replacement project. The words of the Bible are still appropriate today, but I would be hesitant to follow some of the medical advice.
Often the finds involve newspapers or letters found in a wall while a structure is being remodelled or razed. When my father helped tear down the Pleasant Valley country school house we both attended, he brought home one of my spelling papers. It was found hidden in the school’s basement. He gave me a hard time about not bringing the paper home to show my poor grade. If he found any of his papers, he didn’t bring them home for me to see.
About a year ago, a reader of this newspaper asked for our help in identifying a bank found in the rafters of a Nuckolls County home in 2011.
I posted a picture of the bank on the internet and learned the following from Donald Sloane:
Made by Automatic Recording Safe Co. Chicago, Illinois. Called The Traveling Teller and sometimes The Wealthometer, it has slots for cents,nickels,dimes, quarters and halves. There is a hole in the bottom for bills.
There were four different patents issued for the bank. The bank found in Nuckolls County appears to be based on the the 1911 patent.
These were promotional items given away by hundreds of banks. They can be bought online from $10 to more than $100. Most don't have the key but you can find out online how to make or buy a key.
The inscription on the found bank indicates it was given away by a bank formerly located in Superior. The bank was opened in 1911 with John Yung as president. Later that year the bank was merged with Superior's First National Bank with C. E. Adams as president. It apparently was part of the big collapse which broke the state bank insurance fund, and sucked the early settlers’ money out of Superior.
The momentum the community had prior to the bank failure has never been recovered. The Yungs bought the house at 729 Commercial and lived there a short time,. It was later to become the home and office of Dr. Maxey. Jake and Gretchen White lived there when it was a Vestey Festival featured home.
But the strangest find of all was reported by the Omaha World Herald in 1950 when a collector of old cars found a 1918 Chevrolet automobile in the basement of a farm home near Lawrence.
While the collector considered it a “find” I suspect the owner knew it was there all along as he had put it there in 1927. The World-Herald described it as the resurrection of the vehicle.
The owner, Herman Lemke, told the Omaha newspaper he purchased the then new car from a dealer at Superior. In 1927, he remodeled his home and for an unexplained reason he ran the nine-year old auto into the basement before closing in the basement. The vehicle was to stay parked in the basement for 23 years.
In the summer of the 1950, F. F. McNichols of Sunburg, Ohio, learned of the entombed auto and negotiated its purchase. To get the vehicle out of the basement, it was necessary to remove part of the basement wall and use a tractor and hoist to lift the vehicle up and out.
Asked what he planned to do with the automobile, Mr. McNichols told the reporter, “I just want it for a relic. I’m going to put new tires on the car and drive it home. It’s in perfect condition.”
Webster County Clerk G. G. Doering was jolted when Mr. Lemke appeared at the Red Cloud courthouse to obtain a title for the vehicle.
Doering said, “It is the oldest car I’ve ever issued a certificate of title for in my 15 years in the clerk’s office.
I perhaps understand why Mr. Lemke put the car in the basement.
I once helped my father use a block and tackle to pull a Model A Ford up to the dock high floor of the former Hardy depot which he used for a warehouse. New containers of oil and grease were stored around the vehicle and it soon looked like it had been stored in the depot for years.
A fancier of old cars, stopped at my father’s gasoline station. He looked through an open warehouse door, spied the dust covered Model A and began negotiating. My father called me out of a Superior High School math class to ask where the keys were. That’s right, the car was sold and it left for Colorado. I don’t remember if it was driven away from the station but I suspect it was. I had driven it before it was put into storage and it wasn’t stored long enough to have caused additional mechanical problems.
I know about other things that have or will be a problem to remove.
A local salvage dealer recently told about having to cut up a nonworking freezer the owners wanted out of the basement of their home and it didn’t fit in-tact through the passages.
While we often hear jokes about people building boats in their basement and then being unable to get them out. I have known people who did that very thing.
When the current newspaper office was constructed in Hill City, printing equipment was lowered into the basement before the building was finished. Now the only way to remove that no longer used equipment is to either cut it up or dismantle part of the building.
I’ve done a similar thing. When we added a process darkroom to the Superior Publishing Company plant, the equipment was moved in before the walls went up to enclose the darkroom. When the decision is made to remove the equipment, it will either be dismantled or a wall removed.
The building which houses our bindery department was built in 1888 to house Superior’s first grain elevator and feed mill. After the grain business moved to larger quarters, the building was used by a funeral service. The basement, which is no longer easily accessed, contains items left from both the feed and funeral businesses.
When the downtown Superior building now occupied by Superior Physical Therapy was built, it included a room that extended under the sidewalk to near the present curb line. As part of the most recent downtown improvement project, that room was filled and a new sidewalk placed. I suspect many of the old cast-offs stored in that room may have been left and filled around.
A few years ago, I had a hand in sharing a story about a steam powered tractor that was dug out of the Republican River mud near Scandia. That engine was restored to operating condition and is now on display in a northern museum.
Every know and then there are stories about ships being recovered from the mud and sand.
Recently I heard a story at church that I’ll retell to close this column. Seems a skeptic didn’t believe the Bible’s account of God saving the Hebrew slaves fleeing from bondage in Egypt. He asked, “What’s the big deal about parting the waters? Where the Hebrews crossed the Red Sea the water is only about six inches deep.”
And to which the preacher said, “That demonstrates the awesome power of my God. He was able to drown an entire Egyptian army in less than six inches of water.”
I wasn’t there to measure the water but regardless of the depth, I know I worship an awesome God. Archeologists have found in the Red Sea mud what appears to be chariot wheels and other evidence which supports the story about the destruction of the Egyptian army.
Reader Comments(0)