Taking a stroll in the woods is always a novel idea but this young boy’s adventure in the forest led him to accidentally, uncovering a mystery that has been left stale for decades. He accomplished something, that even professionals tried and failed at, before him.
Money Versed
Read on, as we unfold this story which turns a small eastern European town into a local media hot spot– all because of one boy and his urge for curiosity. Click next now and get ready for one wild ride!
Setting The Scene
Kurtna Lake District is a wooded 30 hectors of tranquil beauty which has about 40 lakes in it. As you can imagine, the spot is a favourite in Estonia for anyone who wants to hide away from the world for a few hours.
Money Versed
That is exactly what our young explorer was doing one rainy afternoon. He grabbed his phone and went around poking through the tress to clear his head. Originally, he had planned to take his usual trail but due to the weather, he changed his mind.
Investigating Alone
Walking aimlessly in the woods, with the soft patter of rain around him, the boy was very content until he took a look at the ground in front of him. He spotted something rather unnatural, which he just couldn’t place!
Money Versed
It looked like the earth itself, had been gouged open into the ground by something or someone. He could only see the top of the thing but had no idea what to make of it. Whatever it was, it looked like someone had intentionally placed it there!
Local Attention
Confused and shaken, he rushed back home and recalled the entire story to his parents. Even though their son was visibly distraught, the parents thought nothing of it and tried to calm the situation.
Money Versed
Still, the boy went on and on about the item and agreed to go and take a look at it. They asked a few friends to come along as well, but the minute they saw the buried mystery for themselves, they called the police!
Intervention
As the parents described their son’s discovery, in detail to the authorities over the phone they seemed to get more and more alarmed. There was something clearly lodged under the murky water’s of this lake and was it dangerous?
Money Versed
The authorises brought with them, heavy-duty equipment to bring the mystery to an end. They drove a massive bulldozer into the wooded area to pull, with the help of some ropes, whatever carved the trail out of the water.
Tedious Work
It might seem easy in theory but in practice, this was hard work even with the equipment. At that point, they had no idea what was buried in there. For all they knew, it could have been something unsafe.
Money Versed
Slowly though, some divers attached ropes to the object, and then attached the ropes to the bulldozer. All the horsepower of the heavy equipment tugged on whatever was submerged in the water.
What Was It?
After some time, the bulldozer pulled something to the surface. At that point, several people from around the town had come to the site to see for themselves, what this young boy had accidentally found in the forest.
Money Versed
A few people gasped as they saw a massive open hatch, and soon, a completed picture formed in the crowds’ heads: was this some kind of old transport vehicle? A few people cleared away mud and muck with shovels and revealed what exactly had submerged itself.
Community Project
Things seemed to be moving quickly now, but not enough for some watchers. They eagerly grabbed shovels and helped dig away the grime caked to the vehicle. Everyone’s excitement was growing.
Money Versed
It seems like they were so close to fully unearthing the vehicle. The boy looked on, satisfied and excited as not only because his suspicions were justified but also because his discovery has brought the whole town together.
Final Reveal
Finally, after hours of sweaty, high-energy work, everyone involved in the massive undertaking uncovered enough of the metallic mystery to finally see what it was. The huge metal machine, ominous stood in front of everyone!
Money Versed
And It was a World War II tank — and somehow, it was in nearly perfect condition! The turret loomed over everyone’s heads as the enormous metal frame rattled out onto the bank.
Details
The tank was immediately recognized as a Soviet-built T34/76A. Naturally, all the on-lookers began wondering why such a powerful weapon was simply left forgotten under the water.
Money Versed
This was an expensive and very dangerous machine, which was used in World War II. The T-34 was the mainstay of Soviet armoured forces throughout the war but that also meant that with 44,900 lost during the war, it also suffered the most tank losses ever.
How Did It Get There?
After much deliberation, historians theorized the tank was abandoned in the lake. It was obvious that the vehicle was left, willing since it did not have any damage. Maybe the soldiers fled away from it.
Money Versed
It was also common practice in WWII, to sink or destroy one’s one machinery and weapons to protect the technology from getting into their enemy’s hand. So, the last thing the Soviets needed was the enemy using their own technology against them.
Another Case
Something similar happened, halfway across the world in Oregon, USA. At the Detroit Dam on the North Santiam River creates a reservoir known as Detroit Lake. The lake provides water for the city of Salem — and intrigue every autumn.
Sally DeSouza
Towards the end of every year, the lake runs mostly dry, exposing a cracked-and-grassy surface that brings locals out to the Marion County mountains in droves. It’s not the lake’s barren surface they want to see, however — well, not exactly.
Attraction
Rather, travellers pull off Route 22 every fall — usually between October 1 and January 1 — hoping to catch a glimpse of history: a piece of the area’s rich past jutting from the soil like a troop of two-foot soldiers.
Bicycle Times Mag
Tree stumps pepper the landscape, vestiges of the past creating an eerie atmosphere. Touch a stump and you won’t feel the familiar bark; rather, you’ll feel a thick-and-bloated stump that belongs to the depths of Detroit Lake.
Drought
Most thought these stumps, interesting as they are, were all the drained lake had to offer (when full, the lake’s a popular place for water sports). But in 2015, a drought drained the lake in its entirety, revealing the deepest depths of the reservoir…
State Library of Oregon
During the drought, and thanks to a lack of snowfall in the Cascades, the lake dropped 143 feet below capacity. Marion County Sheriff’s Deputy Dave Zahn saw this as an opportunity to explore the land beyond the stumps.
Attachment
“I went on a treasure hunt down along the river, figuring I’d find foundations or something like that,” Deputy Dave said. He wandered the dried-up lake bed, grazing the stumps with his fingertips until he saw something in the distance.
KPTV
In a part of the lake bed submerged underwater for over 70 years, the deputy saw what at first might’ve looked like a fat tree branch in between two stumps. But as he neared the oddity, he saw more clearly what it actually was.
Stuck In The Mud
Out of the mud stuck a wagon, complete with massive spoked wheels and a spring seat. Low oxygen levels in the reservoir preserved the piece of history almost perfectly, including a metal plate with some telling details.
Oregon Live
The metal plate revealed the wagon was built in 1875 by the Milburn Wagon Company of Toledo, Ohio, the biggest wagon manufacturer in the U.S. at the time. A simple discovery, yes, but one that had an immeasurable impact on the local community.
The Story
The wagon discovery reopened the past. While the history of Lake Detroit wasn’t exactly a secret, it didn’t hurt for Oregonians who might not know to ask what’s the story behind this wagon and all these stumps?
Oregon Live
The charming history, soon consumed by locals intrigued by the wagon, went like this: in the 1880s pioneers — likely steering carts like the one Deputy Dave found — left Michigan for the Pacific Northwest. They made a settlement along a river.
History
They called their settlement “New Detroit,” named, of course, for their home state’s largest city. While New Detroit never matched the size of its namesake, the settlement did grow to about 200 people.
Oregon Live
The small community nestled in a pocket of trees first housed builders for the Oregon Pacific Railroad, but eventually, it thrived on its own merit as citizens built cafes, churches, hardware stores, and logging companies.
New Construction
For about 70 years, the small settlement grew, but then Congress devised a plan to help out farmers and downstream towns getting obliterated by a constantly-flooding North Santiam River: the construction of a dam.
Oregon Live
The 463-foot-high dam was for electricity, irrigation, and most importantly, flood control, and its creation, New Detroit residents knew, meant the demise of their humble settlement. In 1952, after World War II, the Army Corps of Engineers arrived.
Before
The Corps cleared over 3,000 acres of trees from what would be the dam’s reservoir, not knowing, of course, they were creating what would be a local attraction 70-some-odd years later: the tree stump garden.
Residents protested the destruction of their settlement, but to no avail. Still, grim as it looked, this was not the end of New Detroit, which by then was alive with automobiles instead of horse-drawn carts!
Ghost Town
Residents who’d grown fond of their little corner of the world simply packed up and moved to the top of a plateau about one mile away. It must’ve been haunting to watch the water turn their old settlement — including the wagon — into a ghost town!
Oregon Live
Thanks to Deputy Dave’s lake bed exploration, the history of New Detroit was brought into the light once more. That neat wagon, which experts supposed had never before been exposed until that 2015 drought, triggered an entire area’s interest in its colourful past!