Wallets and drugs

[rastinirv]

This is a story of driving along and something in the wintry (and leafless) roadside woods catching my eye, leading to fun and adventure.

I was returning from getting my first vaccine shot on Friday. The sun was out for the first time in over of week of rain and sleet. I was driving in an area full of big corporate campuses (Research Triangle) that were carved out of woods and farmland. All the big campuses are set back from the road and ringed with woods.

Moving along at 45 mph, I saw an old little structure collapsing in the woods. I turned around, pulled over and pulled on my rubber boots, and tramped into the woods. The detector was in my trunk, but I left it and instead grabbed a couple grocery bags in case I found any old bottles.



After a few minutes of pushing leaves around, I noticed a glint of glass.



There were dozens and dozens of old, glass pharmaceutical bottles several layers thick, along with what looked like some early plastic bottles. Oddly, mixed in were a bunch of disintegrating wallets and change purses, also plastic. It became clear that these were all unused (fine, but I would've been okay with them being filled with cash or Peace dollars or jewelry). After about 30 minutes both of my bags were filled and, since this was an unplanned stop, I was running late to get back to work. I have so far been unable to find any legible dates on anything, but some of these drugs have not been made in many years. Some are surprisingly dry for having been underground with rusty metal caps for so many years. [insert jokes about sampling drugs, some of which are fairly heavy-duty sedatives]. These photos are from after some cleaning with warm, soapy water.




In the end, it appears to be part of the stock of a drug store that for some unknown reason was dumped in these woods. The plastic wallets seem like something you could buy in a corner drug store back in the 60s or early 70s. There is much more exploring to do, obviously. Thanks for reading!

 

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[brianc053]

I'll as the obvious question: I wonder if there was a drug store robbery back in the 60's or 70's in the area, and whether one of the local newspapers had an article on it. And maybe that newspaper has been digitized so that a search of the right library database might solve the mystery.
Good luck with your research! And I love that you were late for work to do some adventuring. I wish the snow would melt here in NJ so I could be late for work....

 

[rastinirv]

That's a good point. I actually have a subscription to newspapers.com. And I'm one of the lucky ones who is able to work from home, so I have *some* flexibility. Hope your snow melts away, soon!

 

[Digger RJ]

Cool!! Congrats!!

 

[pepperj]

Interesting to say the least and makes one wonder if it was a personal supply-or the proceeds of some crime. Now the rip off of a drugstore would take the Narcotics out and discard the rest. The personal self medicate type it might of been a discarded pile of meds from the home/estate.
Just a tad of proof of how much drugs can be in a home-The family did a cleanse on the mother's house in the early 80's=300+ bottles of pills.

 

[Gene Mean]

Interesting for sure. Head back with your detector to see how old the site is.

 

[rastinirv]

Cool!! Congrats!!

Yeah, one of the best things about our hobby is piecing together the secret history of the things we find. It might be hard to pin this one down. None of the bottles I have found so far appears to have an Rx label; they all seem to be the supply that a pharmacist would use to dispense from (and to be sure, most bottles I found were empty; but if someone was interested in getting high, that big bottle of Doriden would have done the trick, from what I read online). And the wallets are an interesting wrinkle. I'll be going back at some point. I haven't even peeked inside the structure yet. Fortunately, it all appears to be in a public right-of-way zone, really not far from the road at all.

 

[rastinirv]

Interesting to say the least and makes one wonder if it was a personal supply-or the proceeds of some crime. Now the rip off of a drugstore would take the Narcotics out and discard the rest. The personal self medicate type it might of been a discarded pile of meds from the home/estate.
Just a tad of proof of how much drugs can be in a home-The family did a cleanse on the mother's house in the early 80's=300+ bottles of pills.

Whoops. I meant to reply to you when I replied to Digger RJ

 

[gunsil]

It seems to me that you were trespassing on somebody's property. Personally I have seen lots of interesting places while driving around the country but have never gone on private property to investigate. Even if a place is abandoned, it still belongs to somebody and digging around on other's property without permission is kinda against the basic rules of hunting and common courtesy.

 

[rastinirv]

I appreciate your point, but as I alluded to earlier in a reply, it seems to be on public right of way. Indeed, there was a little post marked R/W and this was on the correct side of it.