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What is This ????????

CJD3

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NE Ohio
Background:
I have been mowing this area for over 30 years. Just this year, a area roughly 2ft. x 3ft. started to loose the grass growing there. As you can see in the picture, this 2 x 3 ft. area has dead grass. Mom and Dad started poking around the rectangular area and started to uncover some sort of steel. Yesterday I went to the spot with her and dug up a little further. I discovered this steel piece attached to a 2 x 3 foot hunk of poured cement. It was just a inch or two under the surface. The location had a farm house and barn dating back to 1870's. (now long gone) In the 1920's-1970's, there have been trap shooting events, large group picnics as well as various other outdoor type recreational events.
It would suspect that the 2 longer upright sides have been broken off but I may be wrong.
I would like to know if anyone can tell me what this might have been a base for... :smiley_confused_vra

2 x 3 foot area w/ grass dieing




Coke can for scale







 
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Mike

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Up Nort
Strange. I have no clue. Almost looks like it had sides that were busted off.
 

Curran

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That's weird though that it just started to cause the grass to die off now? Maybe that's just a coincidence.... or is it?
 

Beentown

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It holds tiny alien space ships. They have come back and their gravity drive engines kill the grass ;)

Beentown
 

Riverdude

The Happy Hunting Grounds Beyond
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Ashtabula, Ohio
Big Bro, is this over at the "Picnic Grounds"? I would agree with Adam that is was some kind of "footer" for the beams to the barn. I just can't believe how well that coke can has held up over the years. rotflmao
 

RedCloud

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Do you have any photo's lurking in the family albums that might show what use to be there ? Would be cool to find out what it is for sure.

I would guess with all the rain and then the bright sunshine and hot weather it has heated up the concrete and Iron and it has cooked the grass. I know around my sidewalks this summer the concrete has been hot enough to bake the grass that has grown over the edges.
 

CJD3

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NE Ohio
The dirt around it would only get deeper with time. The "wear" at the top of the 2 long sides implies the tractor has been driving over it for some time. Why the grass has started to die in the 2x3 ft area is a real mystery. I don't think the sun could heat the cement 2" down enough to kill the grass in the square exactly the slab size...

My thought was an old base for a flag pole that had 1/2 moon sides with a double pin. Pull the 1 pin and it would hinge down (hand-over-hand) to change the rope pulley at the top. I wanted to see if someone recognized the thing. To my knowledge there are no known pictures of the old home stead. There is a "sink hole" we have hit for many many years that Dad said was the old well or sis tern. I know about where the barn was because I can see some of the old rock foundation from the lake shore. Not sure where the home was. Have turned up an area I think was a junk pile because of old hinges and some random hardware.

In fact, I'll tell you another story from there...

That old barn I mentioned from the 1870's was still standing in the 1940-1950 era. Dad told us some of the beams from that barn were large and were saved and stored for many years. in the 1960's they (2 of them) were used for a bridge so we could cross a stream in the back of our property with snowmobiles. The bridge stood for less than 10 years then was washed out by a flood that carried them about 100-150 yards down stream to the mouth of our lake where they sat, lodged on a mud bank. They were used by all the water critters from geese, ducks, muskrats and turtles to nest and sun on. Then around 2005 or 2006, another big rain finally lifted and washed the ( them meaning the 2 beams and a attached deck) old bridge out into the lake. The lake River dude and I live on is 10 acres. For about 2 years the bridge, now in deep water and having muck, plants and 3 foot willow saplings growing on the deck acted as a sail and blew up and down the lake when ever a high wind or storm blew in. It was almost a joke to see where "the old bridge" had ended up.

(continued)
 
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CJD3

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Somewhere around 2007 the old bridge drifted back down the length of the lake to the area at the picnic grounds we used as a row boat launch. That spot is less than 10 yards from where the old barn stood in the 1870's!!! It sat there for months before Jeff, Jake and I went over there with the big tractor and using chains, dragged it up on shore to the very yard it cane from. It sat there a season until we got the bright idea to remove the rotten decking and use the beams to build another bridge to replace an old one. Around 2009, we dragged the 2 old, solid beams down to the place we needed em and built a new bridge, setting the beams on cement blocks and decking it where it still stands today.

Below are a couple pictures of the 2 beams I have been speaking of.









 
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hickslawns

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Very cool stuff! Thanks for the history about the old homestead. Always interesting.

Now my thoughts on this: I recently (last spring) dug out a chunk of concrete from a barn which was finally torn down for a friend of the family. I also happen to hunt this farm. hehe

The old barn had this chunk of concrete poured just outside of the doors. I started to dig this thing out thinking I would dig around it with the backhoe and then just flip it over and out of the ground. My intention was to curl it into the hoe and drive it back along the creek to place it along the creek banks as per their request. Well, as I began to dig it up, I found it was 9-10' long, 4' wide, and 3' DEEP! My backhoe is a JD, but there ain't enough butt in the ol' girl to pick that chunk of concrete up. haha I ended up digging a larger hole next to it and rolling it into the hole. Then I covered over it with several feet of dirt and leveled the best I could with the remaining soil.

Where I am going with this is what was tapped into the concrete. There were some pieces of metal similar to this one which were the tracks for the doors. Anytime you dig out concrete or an old gravel driveway and cover over it with dirt, it seems you end up with dead spots of grass above it during the driest parts of the summer. I don't care if you put a foot of soil over top of the concrete, there will be some noticeable deviation in the grass in the dog days of summer. Look at aerial photos of old farms and you can see where the old drives were or gravel floors of buildings, or oftentimes the old foundations. The grass never seems to be quite the same color or quality. My guess is if you dig deep enough you will turn over some concrete, or at least a decent amount of stone foundation base from something which used to sit there. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an old storm cellar under there someplace. My guess is these are the tracks the old barn doors used to secure to to keep them from blowing in the wind.
 

CJD3

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Definatly cast iron. All the bolts are there, could it be there is something deeper in the ground it is bolted too?

Its bolted to a 2x3 foot slab of cement. I don't know how deep the cement goes.
I had it exposed nicely until the heavy rain we got last night.
 
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RedCloud

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Very cool stuff CJ. Amazing how the old barn beams seemed to want to go home after all those years. Now you know the next time I come up there you guys are going to have to show me this bridge lol. I don't remember seeing it the last time I was there.
 

RRJJ

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Very cool stuff! Thanks for the history about the old homestead. Always interesting.

Now my thoughts on this: I recently (last spring) dug out a chunk of concrete from a barn which was finally torn down for a friend of the family. I also happen to hunt this farm. hehe

The old barn had this chunk of concrete poured just outside of the doors. I started to dig this thing out thinking I would dig around it with the backhoe and then just flip it over and out of the ground. My intention was to curl it into the hoe and drive it back along the creek to place it along the creek banks as per their request. Well, as I began to dig it up, I found it was 9-10' long, 4' wide, and 3' DEEP! My backhoe is a JD, but there ain't enough butt in the ol' girl to pick that chunk of concrete up. haha I ended up digging a larger hole next to it and rolling it into the hole. Then I covered over it with several feet of dirt and leveled the best I could with the remaining soil.

Where I am going with this is what was tapped into the concrete. There were some pieces of metal similar to this one which were the tracks for the doors. Anytime you dig out concrete or an old gravel driveway and cover over it with dirt, it seems you end up with dead spots of grass above it during the driest parts of the summer. I don't care if you put a foot of soil over top of the concrete, there will be some noticeable deviation in the grass in the dog days of summer. Look at aerial photos of old farms and you can see where the old drives were or gravel floors of buildings, or oftentimes the old foundations. The grass never seems to be quite the same color or quality. My guess is if you dig deep enough you will turn over some concrete, or at least a decent amount of stone foundation base from something which used to sit there. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an old storm cellar under there someplace. My guess is these are the tracks the old barn doors used to secure to to keep them from blowing in the wind.

I think Phil is spot on here. My wife's grandma's barn has a similar object in the middle of the entrance to them where the two doors meet when closed.
 

Jackalope

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Amazing how a hunk of steel from the 1870s can sit in the ground for 141 years and only look pitted.. Yet if you went to home depot today and purchased one, it would rust out and disappear within 3 years...

I pulled a chain link fence post out of my back yard that was 4 tall foot and replaced it with a higher fence.... The new metal post was 10x thinner walled than the old stuff made just 25 years ago. Shouldn't even call it a post. Was more like a thin metal cylinder..