The Zwick family had spent ten happy years in their home, building unforgettable memories. One day though, their own property surprised them when they decided to finally investigate a hatch buried at the end of their backyard.
They figured there would be nothing of interest in it, maybe they might find some access to old plumbings.. they were very wrong! On the other side of the hatch, they found a spectacular discovery, one which to add them to the pages of history.
Zwick Family
The family had lived in their home in Neenah, Wisconsin, for more than ten years. While they did know that at the end of their yard, buried deep in the bushes, was something unusual they never thought it was anything to think about.
Most of the year, the door was buried under snow and when that didn’t happen, the family was too busy with their full life to go investigate it. Just from the looks of it, the door seemed to look ordinary enough to not warrant any curiosity from the family.
Ten Years Later!
Like you can already assume from the title, the family did end up opening the hatch and when they did, they were full of regret, they wished they had opened it years sooner! It seemed like the hatch wasn’t a leftover access panel at all but had a life of its own.
Let’s rewind back to the day, the work began on clearing the hatch door. The family choose to start early since the entrance needed hours of work before it would become accessible. It was covered in thick weeds which had grown over the door, for decades it looked like.
The Process
The first thing the family did was get out the gardening sheers and with each snap, the excitement grew. What once seemed like a simple metal cover was turning into a heavy-duty hatch which looked like it was hiding something very dear.
Well, they weren’t wrong. The hatch was anything but usual and would soon have most other family’s digging in their yards, hoping to find something similar. The work that took to clear the gate was long and laborious.
An Empty Room?
“We assumed it was just this empty space … what should be in the hatch?” Carol Hollar-Zwick explained to the Appleton Post Crescent. However, she would soon be proven otherwise.
Behind the rusted hatch door and hinges, lay a secret that had been hidden for decades and the family was just about to unknowingly uncover it. While it didn’t have any monetary value, historians around the world would have fought over finding a similar hatch in their garden!
Not So Easy…
Clearing the hatch door wasn’t just enough, it seemed like the door was also locked from the outside. Whatever was behind that hatch was meant to not see daylight and this only increased the family’s curiosity.
It looked like the door that hadn’t been opened in maybe 50 years. The lock was completely rusted and no easy task to open. With a lot of shaking and pulling, the family finally managed to open the hatch …
A What?!
Expecting a couple of old pipes buried underneath, what they saw was rather bizarre, they found a ladder! A ladder? It looked like the hatch opened up to a five feet deep ladder which was drenched in murky water.
At this point, most people would have called it quits or gotten some professional help but the Zwick family was motivated to finally get to the literal and figurative bottom of this hatch. So, they pumped out the water from the ladder and found an almost hidden passage away underneath.
Curiouser And Curiouser
You can see in the picture, that despite the water damage the ladder seemed to be rather secure. It looked like, whoever built this hatch wanted it to stay standing for decades to come. The family confirmed the durability of the ladder, by going down it one by one.
As they climbed down, they inspected the sides of the hatch and it seemed solid enough and with the hatch door securely closed, the question was ” where did all the water come from?” Ready to find the answer to this and many of their other questions, the family climbed deeper down the ladder.
What Was Inside Of It?
What they found down the ladder was a windowless chamber, which seemed to have been flooded for many years. But thanks to the Zwick family it was not accessible but what was is it?
You can see from the walls, just how high the chamber had been flooded but somehow, even with that, the room seemed intact. In fact, the chamber had many packages which were still wrapped tagged with big bold letters: U.S Army.
They Needed Help!
There were also old ammunition boxes in the chamber. The family was concerned that they might contain explosives – so they finally called in agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.
They wanted to be on the safe side and definitely did not want to put anyone in danger. It seemed like the family had discovered something potentially dangerous and to think that for ten years, they had been sleeping on top of old unstable bases of ammunition!
Boxes
While the family had waited for ten years to open the hatch, now that they knew what was inside of it the wait of an hour or two for the ATF seemed to be unbearable. The family paced back and forth, anxiously waiting to get some answers.
Finally, when the ATF agents arrived they went straight to the ammunition boxes, thankfully they didn’t contain live explosive instead had containers of Hawaiian punch, among other things
The 1960s
With the threat of any potential firearms neutralized, the team went about opening and categorizing all the other boxes they found. Most of the boxes had food supplies stored in them but they all seemed to be decades old.
However, since all the items had been kept in airtight containers, they appeared to be in surprisingly good condition. Most of the items were from the 1960s in America, items included corn flakes, butterscotch bits, and Del Monte raisins, as well as clothing, bedding, medical supplies, and even candles.
Live underground
These supplies were meant to feed an entire family, in case they were forced to live underground for days or weeks. Back then, it was very common to commission underground bunkers to protect one’s family in the event of another world war.
While this was relatively common thankfully they were never needed. The rooms were either turned into glorified basements or filled in completely to protect anyone was accessing them. So, what the Zwick family had was very unique.
Atomic bunker
With the help of the team, all the boxes were brought up and saw daylight after decades of being wet and hidden underground. They also managed to find more information about the hatch.
It was built in 1960 as a nuclear bunker. If nuclear war broke out, the homeowner – doctor Frank Pansch – intended to go underground with his family. It seemed like he had it well-stocked with basic supplies like toilet paper and canned food.
Nuclear war
The trend of building nuclear bunkers for suburban hones began during the Cold War. A war between two superpowers, US and USSR. Both had huge nuclear arsenals, which prevented the US and USSR from entering into direct conflict.
Image: via Wikipedia
But still, the tensions were extremely high and everyone assumed that Nuclear war was impending. To safe their families from such an attack, many Americans were driven out of fear and necessity to horde food and build underground bunkers.
Stalemate
A war between the two superpowers would be determinantal to both side but this was the logic of Mutually Assured Destruction. Both sides could claim tens of millions of civilian casualties and both sides would be completely destroyed.
Image: via Wikipedia
While thankfully, the countries didn’t find directly, the two powers were in a stalemate. No one knew what would happen next and as a result, many families simply wanted to be on the safe side and ended up building bunkers, seemingly overnight.
Protected?
However, modern research has proved that these bunkers were not designed to withstand the ravages of a nuclear explosion. All it would enable the family to avoid the deadly effects of radioactive fallout after a nuclear explosion.
Image: BusinessInsider
Fortunately, the family never had to use this bunker but if they did, chances are it would have been useless at the time of the attack and all the food and supplies stored inside would have been incinerated due to the blast.
Several bunkers
The tensions again reached a new peak when the Cuban Missile Crisis brought America and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. This reinvigorated the craze for building bunkers, in the 1960s.
Image: via YouTube
Chances are if your home was built around the same time, you should start digging in your backyard. It doesn’t matter if you live in a big town, since the Zwich family live in the small town of Neenah, which is about 200 miles from Chicago and 80 miles from Milwaukee, so it likely would have gotten away with it relatively unscathed but still, they found a bunker in their yard.
Stocks
The amazingly well-preserved supplies provide a window into this now-forgotten Cold War world. However, it is all too easy to imagine that a 1960s family would go underground if conflict broke out.
However, it is more difficult to find out whether this shelter would have been enough to save their lives. What do you think? Would this family have made it in a bunker? It probably depends on how many family members there are and how far the radius of the attack is to the bunker.
A journey through time
“It’s interesting that you can open (something) and find (yourself) in 1960. It’s like going back in time, ”Carol Hollar-Zwick told the Appleton Post-Crescent. It must be fascinating seeing everyday American household brands and how they once used to look like, decades ago.
Rather than keep all of these treasures for themselves Zwick family eventually decided to donate their booty to the Neenah Historical Society, which hosted an exhibition of the finds. By that time, their story had reached eyes and ears across America and many turned up to look at the marvels of it all, firsthand.
A great experience
“It will really make people feel what it was like to live in 1960. Isn’t that awesome? “Neenah Historical Society chief executive Jane Lang told FOX 11. This simple hatch hid not just the beauty of the 1960s but also the horror.
We are glad that the Zwick family revealed this secret to the world and maybe, just maybe you also have hidden a mysterious bunker in the garden? There is only one way to find out if you are also sleeping on old ammunition and food suppliers!