Neat find in an old building.

[Helix]

Due to all the snow lately I decided to explore an old commercial building my family owns. In a old access way from the basement to the first floor that had been long boarded up I found these signatures. The staircase in the picture go to the second floor. May 1st 1873 I just that was too cool and thought I should share.

 

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[fishdaddy]

very cool..were those the people that built the place?

 

[creskol]

Now that is neat! Thanks for sharing that with us!

 

[DW Dirt Whisperer]

yes very cool. our history is slowly disappearing and it is up to us to save it for our kids

 

[Helix]

We were always told the building was built in the 1850's-60's. You could be right fish. I am yet to go over to the county office and look at the records.

 

[Tired Rooster]

That is very neat.....would be awesome to know when those signatures were put there.

 

[Helix]

That is very neat.....would be awesome to know when those signatures were put there.

May 1st 1873. You can clearly read that in the picture. LOL!

 

[BigWaveDave]

Thank you for sharing... look for lost change in the area.. ya never know what else you may find.

 

[Tired Rooster]

You can clearly read that in the picture. Now that you pointed that out to me.....so can I. With the help of my spectacles. Sorry.....

 

[SusanMN]

Love it. Do the signatures date to the age of the building, or any significant changes? Or maybe a bunch of guys having some beers under the stairs who decided to do some grafitti

 

[Argentium]

Wow - that is incredible ! Thank you for that glimpse into a time capsule - very special ! have a careful look maybe there is an
Indian Head cent or a Seated Liberty dime in a corner under those stairs for you to find because you can appreciate this !

 

[Sawyer]

May have been the carpenter crew that built the building. I doubt you can find a building built in 1973 that is signed. Back then men were proud enough of their work to sign it AND they weren't afraid of lawyers, judges, and union bosses!

 

[Helix]

I have seen some really cool mid 1800's graffiti in a few of these buildings. One of the best was a steam boat about 20'x 12' mural done with coal.

 

[Back-of-the-boat]

I know when I used to work in construction when I was younger some of the workers would put things in the walls as kind of time capsules most of the time it was a coin with the year that it was built I did it when I did a tile job at my sisters house.

 

[thebirdflu]

I was doing an odd job ten years ago tearing out some walls at a motel. I tore down a piece of drywall and saw a signature on the inside of the wall. It was my dads signature! He built the wall in 1980 when he was in construction. I was just a toddler then. Twenty years later I tore down what he built. Life is funny sometimes...

 

[treblehunter]

May have been the carpenter crew that built the building. I doubt you can find a building built in 1973 that is signed. Back then men were proud enough of their work to sign it AND they weren't afraid of lawyers, judges, and union bosses!

I started in 1977 in construction, I used to sign my work all the time. I worked from 1981 on up in Atlantic City, worked on every casino and other different buildings from the Ritz-Carlton to the Lighthouse Hotel. Allot of us guys used to sign our names on allot of the jobsites. One guy in particular used to do it all the time (that's where I got it from). We were very proud of our work, then and still to this day not afraid of Lawyers or judges. My union reps/bosses didn't care, they took care of us, there was no need to fear them.

 

[jewelerguy]

cool

 

[kenstein]

Very cool piece of history. Reminds me of one of my biggest blunders. I found signatures inside a porch post that I removed for remodeling, and accidentally burned it. There were four posts and got them mixed up. OUCH, that hurt.

 

[PeteWmass]

hmm - is there a lot of random old junk in this building.....Ill be dropping you a line....

 

[Helix]

Finding stuff like this is special in its own way. A few guys wrote there names and date 140 years ago intending it to be found years to come. Supper cool in my book! I can definitely appreciate it. I just need to figure out there exact names and look into the records of the city at that time and see if I can find out more about these fellows. Its worth a shot. Yeah I framed houses for years and yeah we would sign our names and date also somewhere in the house. I also knew a fellow who would always have a fresh roll of pennies and hide them throughout the houses in between wall studs and every were else. Ahh.. the good ol days.