Seven years ago on our Bull Creek Valley property, my husband and I discovered our first relic: a 1957 Ford F-600, a classic old farm truck, smushed into the creekside and left for junk. As we continued cleaning up the land, we slowly built a small collection of objects and rusty tin cans we’d found, savoring the questions each one presented: Whose was it? Why is it out here? What were they doing? Was Bud Light the only drink available?
Propelled by the thrill of the hunt, our interest turned into a hobby. We listened to podcasts, researched local history, read about regional lost treasures and watched shows on land prospecting. We even got a metal detector, quietly yearning to uncover a one-of-a-kind valuable that had been forgotten under layers of earth. But mostly our thrilling hunts ended with barbed wire and building tools, nothing more than a century old.
Then in September 2024, Tropical Storm Helene completely reshaped the terrain by uprooting trees, flushing out creeks and scarring the mountains with landslides…