From: "Jesse James Treasures Down Under ?" - Photos and clippings from Waco
Tribune-Herald from 1992. This booklet is in my private collection.
***
Wednesday, July 22, 1992
Search for safe stuck in the mud
Treasure hunters halt digging for outlaw's booty
By Tommy Witherspoon
Tribune-Herald staff writer
"Four months and $350,000 into their search for a safe they believe Jesse James
buried in East Waco, treasure hunters have temporarily called off their quest.
Plagued by mudslides and water in the 18-foot hole, the workers decided again to
line the hole with a steel coffer dam, which they hope will stabilize the work
site and allow them to bring the safe to the surface.
Darryl Fritz, one of two Australian brothers helping finance the dig, said
Monday that the project will be suspended for 2 1/2 weeks so the Lufkin company
that helped them form a dam several months ago can complete another job.
'Simply put, unless we use the coffer dam again, we are not going to get down to
the bottom and get the safe,' Fritz said. 'The stuff - mud, water, slime - is
coming in faster than we are pumping it out.'
The Fritzes have pooled their resources with two brothers who claim to be the
great-grandsons of Jesse James.
When the dig started, Fritz said, he and his partners thought it would take
about a month to dig up the safe, which they believe to contain gold, James
family heirlooms and other historical documents.
'We never intend to give up. We don't know how,' Fritz said.
The crew first dug inside a coffer dam that previous diggers had placed there.
When that failed, they moved the dam over a few feet and started digging again.
When that failed, they filled in the deep holes, smoothed over the lot at 1820
Earle Ave. and tried using ground-penetrating radars to find the safe. That
also proved useless.
Fritz said they think they have located the safe again by using a long steel
probe that blows water. However, the workers have said that before, he said.
The James brothers say the desperado buried the safe on the lot in 1918, after
pulling it on an ox-drawn wagon from a downtown Waco train depot."
***
~Jay~
Linkback: You are not allowed to view links.
Please Register or Login
http://www.thunting.com/smf/index.php/topic,563.msg56828.html#msg56828
|
« Last Edit: February 05, 2010, 08:33:23 pm by Christian »
|
Logged
|
|
