Pekin wagon fob

[etex]

Sunday finds, 2 indians, wheats, key and a Pekin Wagon Company watch fob

 

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[etex]

 

[Wildcat1750]

Very cool watch fob and nice job researching it! I love it when such a connection can be made to a find.

 

[trapperart]

Congrats on some nice finds

 

[Professor of Engineering]

Nice old coin and relic hunt, congratulations!

 

[Carolina Tom]

Watch fob and skeleton key! Along with lead toy soldier, my three favorite things to find.

Congrats on the nice finds.

 

[NOLA_Ken]

That is a REALLY cool find in my book! I was born and raised in Pekin IL and I actually know pretty much where that Wagon Works was, the building is long gone though, like so much of the industry that was once there. It was owned by Henry Herget, who started the bank my mom worked at, and owned the mill where my grandfather worked. He's an interesting guy and worth reading up on.... Herget, Henry George


Here's another view of the area showing where my great grandparents lived in an old houseboat on the river bank. They lived in the white boat closest to the bridge, and my great grandfather's brother owned the fish market at the far left....

 

[Truth]

Nothing better than history except personal history. What a treasure.


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[NOLA_Ken]

A little more history, the company was known as Smith Wagon before Herget bought it (he worked there early in his life) and was located at 3rd and Margaret Sts, when I got to thinking about it I remembered there was an old junkyard there when I was very young that my grandfather took in newspapers to for recycling. I can't imagine they paid much, but every month we would go down there and he's sell all the papers he'd collected from wherever he could find them. If I'm thinking right one of the wagon company buildings may have still been standing either there or really close by. That would have been early 1970's, I seem to remember that place being gone by the time I was around 10, in 1980.

Strange how something like a watch fob got me thinking about old places where I grew up that I'll be a lot of people my age wouldn't even know existed anymore. I spent the last hour looking up the history of the place (and found the site of an old town that was long ago plowed under into cornfields... may have to go home for a visit) but that's one of the things I love about this hobby, the random finds that bring up forgotten history.

 

[against the wind]

Very nice hunt with some really good finds.
I enjoy turning up old marbles while recovering targets. That skeleton key and the I.H.P.'s would have made most hunts complete. Finding that fob is the cream on the cake.
Congratulations

 

[Trezurehunter]

I like that Fob and Skeleton Key.