Historical
Reports from the Gazette Archives 04.01.65
The weather had been warmer than
usual, the rain had fallen harder than its normal amounts. The snow melt and the
rain combined for the great flood of 1964. The story has been told to no end,
everyone who was there and lived through it will tell you their tale of water
up to here, the almost completed bridge floating past their house. They will tell
you of how everyone ran out to rescue their neighbor and their pets. But
what you don't hear much of is the treasure that was uncovered, moved down stream
and deposited just 2 miles west of Bagnell.
In a small corner of the bend in the mighty river the waters began to recede and
there half buried in the red clay mud was a box. A box that was similar in size
to the cast iron caskets used during the Civil War. Ten bolts on each side held
the box together. Most
who boated past it felt that it was washed up from some long forgotten cemetery
that had been unearthed during the flood. But
one curious person who has asked to remain nameless, decided that he should at
least see if he could free it from the mud and take it to a dry place. Preventing
it from being washed into the waiting sea, just a few more miles to the west. Thinking
that it could be interned later, he struggled for almost an hour to free it from
the mud. Most who passed by felt he was just one of many clearing debris. None
stopped to help.
After nearly an hour the box had not budged more than a foot or so. With one last
tug, the cast iron box broke open, but its contents did not spill out, the contents
was also not what the man in the boat was expecting. Days
later, the man who discovered the box was at the new car dealership in town, buying
a new truck for himself and a new car for his wife he happened to run into a neighbor,
this neighbor was also buying a new pickup truck, he was going to haul his new
boat and trailer with his new truck. | | Now
the two had known each other for years, each knew that the other was not a man
of means but . . . as their brains processed what was taking place they smiled
and said nothing more about what each of them had pulled from the mud along the
banks of the mighty river as flood water receded. You
may know of whom I speak, they are now two of the wealthiest families, and they
were living here during the great flood of 1964. They always have the nicest cars,
biggest fishing boats, they give to all the charitable causes in town and they
never seem to be down on their luck when logging or tourism takes a down turn.
All
because of a couple of cast iron boxes that were revealed during the flood of
1964.
(EDITORS
NOTE; Rumors are heard more as quiet mumblings about a place the old timers know
as the mouth of Sanders Crik. That
name has changed slightly as time has passed. But many believe the cast iron box
came down the creek from some 'secret camp' less than a mile upstream. Others
believe the box fell from an overturned ferry boat that was trying to deliver
it's cargo to San Francisco in the late 1881 and was swept over board during a
storm and washed towards the angry sea, that is only a few miles farther to the
west.
The cargo was owned by a man named
R. D. Hume. Most thought his loss was canned
salmon or some other perishable goods. But rescue efforts went on for months,
too long and too expensive to just be some canned goods.) |
