1990 >> February >> More Finds From Ohio  

More Finds ... From Ohio
by Bob Harding

Reprinted from "Crown Jewels of the Wire", February 1990, page 15

While at the National Show in Allentown I was introduced to Dave Benko and Bill Burger from Washington. They expressed their wish to dig threadless in Ohio on their return back home, so we setup a meeting place for the Monday following the show. I took them to an early 1850's railroad that had been good to me in the past. We crashed the bushes for several miles searching the surface for piece or whole insulators indicating a place to dig.

We arrived in a small town with only a small piece of a CD 127 skirt. The old railway depot had been restored and remodeled and now houses a small grocery and feed store. A few minutes of Dave's fast talking gained us entrance into the attic. There we found a single ramshorn screwed into a rafter. It was a rubber Goodyear type. We left the town with the ramshorn and information about another depot about 10 miles away. 

This depot was much larger than the last one. It now houses state offices and computer systems. My first thoughts were "no way on this one", but once again Dave's fast talking and persistence got us a ladder from a concerned looking gentleman who never really said "yes". 

Bill was the first to get a look into the attic. His obvious excitement sent us scrambling up through the opening. On the beam above the opening were 16 Goodyear patent ramshorns with wires still attached to some of them. On another beam about 15 feet away was an identical lineup of hooks. Bolted to the floor were crossarms loaded with CD 126 blobs. The rafters and much of the wood was blackened from fire. Most of the the CD 126s were broken from the heat. Hundreds of telegrams and railroad documents littered the floor. Near the far end we rescued a railroad schedule board. But the most interesting discovery by far was mounted on its original side bracket above the first set of ramshorns. Before our eyes was an ultra rare "Pond's Patent". 

We started removing ramshorns and searching for more treasures. We removed the Pond's and placed it carefully in the backpack with Dave's lighting equipment. The paper was much too brittle to put in the pack so we handed it down separately. The nervous gentleman below yelled up, "Ten more minutes, guys". We ended up with 29 1851 Goodyear's patent ramshorns, a Pond's patent on its original cathedral pin and some 1880's side and crossarm pins. Just to show, there is still good stuff out here to be found.. ..even in OHIO!



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