Unexpected backyard find

[gravityrulz]

My 12 yr old son recently purchased a Bounty Hunter Tracker IV. Once of his first searches was in our backyard. Our house is in a surburban subdivision built in the late 1980s. He had a good signal but was having trouble digging in our dense black clay soil so I came out to help. At 12" depth we found the head end of a plugged water well! He was detecting a metal ring, 8" or so outside diameter, that is set in a concrete slab. The center bore is plugged with concrete a few inches below the slab level.
I talked with a lifelong resident of our town who lived nearby in the 1950s and she remembered the well, which was in a pasture at that time. She spoke with another person who said there was a farmhouse near the well and even recalled the family's name that owned the house and farm. My house is only about 6 blocks from the downtown area but we were at the edge of the town's development when we moved here in 1989.
My son's interest in MD'ing has rekindled my interest as well. I had a Garrett 30 years ago (I think the model was S1) but stopped detecting long ago. I now have a BH Time Ranger and we have detected at several of the local school yards ... we always find coins but all recent ones so far.

Terry

 

[jdstawker]

Too bad that wasn't an oil well. It might have been a real valuable find Even so it is a neat part of history. If hadn't been for your son the knowledge of the well and farmhouse might have died. I think that is so cool.

 

[gravityrulz]

LOL, glad this didn't become a Jed Clampett 'bubbling crude' storyline ... it's only 20 ft from my house and I expect that I don't even own the mineral rights! It would have been a big surprise if we had tried to install an in-ground pool in the backyard. With the drought we've had over the last several years, I've even wondered about the cost and feasibility of re-opening it as a well!

I really enjoy the history part of any finds, trying to imagine what an area looked like, how it was used previous times, etc. The amount of buried items is hard to comprehend.

I do wonder if any of the developers involved even knew about the well. The housing developer actually bought the already sub-divided and graded land through the Resolution Trust Corporation in 1988-1989; I suspect the lot grading explains why the well is now a foot below the surface.

Terry