'Ghost wagon' appears in Oregon lake

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CGI_Ram

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Cool story.

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'Ghost wagon' appears in Oregon lake

A mysterious 19th-century “ghost wagon” has appeared in an Oregon lake.

Salem, Ore.-based photographer and Marine Corps veteran Jeffrey Green posted an image of the wagon to Instagram on Jan. 23. In the post, Green explained that, for a couple of weeks in December 2019, the lake had to have its water drastically drawn down for dam maintenance.

“I headed up and searched 3 times while the water dropped day-by-day until I found this ‘historic utility wagon’, which had been left behind at the normally underwater site of the original town (site submerged in 1952),” Green wrote in the post. “Needless to say, it was an amazing experience to see it!”
Green added that the lake’s water level has returned to its normal winter levels. The wagon, he explained, “is safely 20-25 feet underwater and far from shore.”

oregon-lake-cart-Jeffrey-S-Green.jpg


On Facebook, Green provided more details on the discovery, which was made in Detroit Lake, a reservoir near Salem. Water conditions in the lake have helped preserve the 19th-century utility wagon, he said, noting that “over the decades, the (low oxygen) cold water has done an amazing job of preserving it.”

After using binoculars to locate the wagon, Green attempted to get as close as he could. “I had trouble getting closer than about 15 feet to it, because the ground all around it was the consistency of whipped cream with nothing solid under it. I tried to get through it, but quickly sank and got stuck nearly up to my waist,” he wrote. “Once unstuck, and covered in mud from head to toe, I snapped several images and simply gazed at in awe. Several days later the water level started going back up.”

The Salem Statesman Journal reports that the wagon was also spotted during a drought in 2015.

Other mysterious artifacts from bygone eras occasionally appear in other parts of the U.S., typically on beaches. A shipwreck linked to a mutiny and murder mystery, for example, recently emerged from the sands of a North Carolina beach.

Other North Carolina shipwrecks have also been garnering attention. In October 2019, a mysterious shipwreck emerged on a Hatteras Island beach in the wake of a storm before being swallowed up by the sand.

Earlier in 2019, the creepy skeleton of an 86-year-old shipwreck was also revealed by the shifting sands of Hatteras Island.
 

ozarkram

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Interesting. I love this kinda stuff. I like to explore abandoned homes and homesteads. So many questions. Why did you leave this? Who lived here, how many generations? Was it a happy place? Or was life hard? It was once loved and cared for. What happen? Did the last person to shut the door realize no one would ever be coming back? Going thru a once submerged town would be fascinating.
 

Selassie I

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The description of that mud is terrifying.

I wonder why the owner of that wagon decided to just leave the wagon. You'd think that a wagon like that would be the last thing left in a town that everyone was evacuating. Seems like it would have been loaded down with anything and everything it could hold and taken with the evacuees. Weird. Maybe the wheels are missing on the other side.


I've seen storms move sand down here and reveal things that have been buried forever. It happens a lot after hurricanes roll through. You never know what's down under the sand sometimes.

Along what's called the Treasure Coast here in FL... which is the East Coast from about Melbourne down to West Palm.... there are still treasure hunting boats digging for real treasure in the sand. We used to get pissed at these guys when we were trying to go to some of our shallow water lobster diving spots in that area. These boats have what is basically a giant sand vaccum cleaner on them. They suck up sand and they try to get down to the old sunken ships that were carrying gold. It's amazing to see the stuff they find. But those fuckers have jacked us by doing their hunting right in our spots more than once.
 

Elmgrovegnome

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Oh, I feel his pain. In my college days my roommate and I duck hunted a lake bed that was partially drained each winter. We would walk out to the stream/channel and set our decoys. We'd be up to the top of our hip boots in mud. There were times we were worried we wouldn't get unstuck. The worst was when Buck shot a duck that flew out over the other side of the creek. This side had a much longer, flatter surface from shore. It also looked wetter. He walks back to the bridge, all the way across to the other side. Then progressed toward the duck. He gets close to it and sinks to his waste. He was seriously stuck. He used his shotgun as a brace laying it horizontally in the mud and pushing down as he crawled to the duck. He was completely covered in mud. Meanwhile my brother and I got the gear to my car and drive across the bridge to meet him. I pull off the road, expecting him to take of the top layer of clothing before getting in my car. Nope! He was miserable, and only thinking of his misery and jumped right into the front seat of my car. WTF! Then to top it off it turns out that he grabbed my gun by mistake! So it was my gun that was caked with mud.

The night before I drove home to get my brother after a high school football game. I watched him play and we headed back to PSU. It was about an hour and a half drive and we didn't leave until about 10:30. So we get to the apartment around midnight, and wake up at 4:00 am. We are exhausted by the end of the mud bogging hunt, Buck crudded up my car, we go to the apartment and clean the ducks we shot, then I get most of the mud out of my car, cover the seat and drive my brother home. I drop him off and return to colkege. It was a three hour round trip from 4:00 to 7:00 pm. I sit down in my chair to watch the big game. Pitt and Penn State used to be a big rivalry. I see the first few plays and I'm out cold. I awoke at midnight when I hear Buck come in from partying. So I get up and go to bed. I close my bedroom door and there sat my gun, still covered in mud! That asshole never cleaned it! There was a lot of yelling and he refused to clean it because he was the one who had to suffer crossing the flat to get his duck. So I stayed up another hour to clean the shotgun. The next morning he apologized. But that moment painted a clear picture of just who he was. We remained friends but I never forgot that day, and never trusted nor knew him to do the right thing.
 

Selassie I

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@Elmgrovegnome

Duck hunting brings back a funny memory for me too.

1st let me say... I'm not a hunter. I've been fishing since I could walk... but hunting has never been a thing for me. But there was one time that I agreed to go hunting with a friend.

My Grandfather had just picked up a new client. It was a guy who created this thing called a Gheenoe. It's a canoe with a flat back end that you can attach a boat motor to. No more need to row your canoe. The company is still in business today. Anyway... the guy gave my Grandfather one of his brand new Gheenoes as partial payment for some work. So this thing had never been used and it was sitting out in the workshop.

My friend believed that he was the world's greatest hunter. He had spent thousands on guns and camouflage hunting clothes. He had been begging me to use that Gheenoe so he could go duck hunting. This friend was kinda on the slow end in the brain dept... there was no way that my Grandfather was going to let him take that Gheenoe out on his own. So,,, I finally agreed to take him out duck hunting in it. I wasn't going to hunt... I was going to watch and fish.

My friend shows up dressed in so much camouflage and shit that he looked like he could actually hide from the predator. I could not believe the crazy amount of shit he had on. It was impressive really. He also had a very expensive gun that was basically brand new.

We get out on the water and it's unbelievably cold. I'm driving the boat and he is in the front telling me where he wanted to go. He directed me up to an area that he wanted to set up his hunting blind or whatever on. So after lots of loud direct orders from him about where I needed to put the bow of the Gheenoe up onto the bank... he was finally satisfied.

He collected all his shit so that he could take it all up on the bank at once. It was a tremendous amount of shit. I remember being amazed at the amount of stuff he was carrying as he stepped off the front of the boat. My friend was a big dude too.

When he stepped off... it seemed like time had gone into slow motion mode. He stepped off the boat onto what looked like a bank covered with plants. It turned out that the "bank" was actually just a super thick patch of water hyacinths floating on the surface. He stepped off and sank completely under the water and thick layer of hyacinths. He was completely gone. The only thing that remained was his super expensive hunting hat that had managed to come off his head as he sank down... it was on top of the hyacinths. But he was completely gone with his mountain of shit in one fluid motion. I simply could not believe my eyes.

It took way longer than it should have for him to come up from the the frigid water and hyacinths. He was in full panic mode and doing his best to tread water without dropping any of his gear.

What was I doing at this point you ask? I was laughing so hard that I was completely useless to my friend. I couldn't control it... it was completely involuntary laughter that was not stopping no matter how hard I tried.

Let me say this too. It is very difficult to climb into a Gheenoe from open water. In fact, it was impossible for my friend to do it. He managed to throw most of his gear in the boat... and then I had to drive the boat over to an actual bank while he held onto the side freezing his ass off with water coming up over his face.

We got to the bank... he climbed in... and the hunting expedition had ended. We went straight back to the boat ramp and loaded everything up and left. He was as miserable as a person could possibly be even when we were inside the vehicle with the heat blasting. I was still laughing like an insane person.

I think I was still laughing about this for days after. If I could have filmed that whole thing it would have been worth millions. Especially if I had captured the look on his face when he came up out of the water... I'm still laughing about it now just thinking about it.

That was my one and only hunting trip. I've always considered it to be unbeatable... so I've never needed to go again.