Spotted what looks like an old tool fragment while helping clear the creek bed behind the school.

It's just a piece of rusted metal, but the local history group thinks it could be from a early settler's farm.

3 comments

3 Comments

noah9172mo agoMost Upvoted

That creek feeds into Mill River, which flooded badly in 1938. A lot of older stuff got washed down from upstream farms and mills. That rusted piece could be from a tool shed that collapsed in the flood, not some pioneer farm. The history group always jumps to the oldest guess, but it might just be junk from the 1940s. Check if there are any markings under the rust, like part numbers or stamps.

willowroberts2mo ago

Good point about the flood moving things around. The local history group does tend to favor the oldest possible story without enough proof. A careful cleaning to check for marks is the only way to know for sure.

hayden_moore2mo ago

Have you scrubbed the rust off to look for stamps? Noah917 is spot on, the 1938 flood dumped all kinds of things downstream. I dug up a metal plate near Mill River last year and got all excited, but it was just a part from a washed out dairy farm from the 1940s. Those history groups love to romanticize every find. Without clear markings, it's probably just flood junk. Still a neat piece for the local story though.