N2CHX
08-23-2010, 04:38 PM
I went out on the mountain bike today, to a site I found on Google Earth that I thought was interesting. I took some pictures. I have NO IDEA what this place was. Maybe you guys can help me out.
This place is about the size of a football field. There's three sections to it, with concrete walls creating each section and a trench between them about 6 feet wide and 15 feet deep. There are metal rods in the ground everywhere, bent over at an angle. There are several strips of thin concrete about five feet wide and hundreds of feet long. There are steel cables coming vertically out of the concrete retaining wall/foundations about every three feet, which are now sheared off and frayed. There are three pits with concrete retaining walls at the south end of this, about 40 feet across and sort shaped like Oklahoma turned 90 degrees. They are mostly filled in with trees and reeds now.
I got some pics, plus a topo map showing this from 1948. There is a lot of iron at this site (I brought a metal detector). Lots of HUGE bolts and washers and other iron pieces everywhere.
There is no record of this place anywhere I can find, which may indicate what it was. Anthracite coal is all over the site as well, so I thought maybe it was a locomotive works, but I can't find any history of anything like that there. It is sandwiched between the still operational NYC main line and the abandoned Lehigh Valley line.
Here's the topo map from 1948. Arrow points to three red lines which are where this site lies. I see nothing else marked in red like that on any topo map.
http://storage.kellimcmillan.com/kmcmillan/kel/42.55.17.58_-78.36.5.43/depw48nea-marked.jpg
The site on Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=42.921550,+-78.601508&num=1&t=h&vps=1&jsv=268b&sll=42.900614,-78.670306&sspn=0.016348,0.032015&hl=en&ie=UTF8&geocode=FU7ujgId3KJQ-w&split=0
And finally, the pics I took: http://storage.kellimcmillan.com/kmcmillan/kel/42.55.17.58_-78.36.5.43/
What do you think this is???
This place is about the size of a football field. There's three sections to it, with concrete walls creating each section and a trench between them about 6 feet wide and 15 feet deep. There are metal rods in the ground everywhere, bent over at an angle. There are several strips of thin concrete about five feet wide and hundreds of feet long. There are steel cables coming vertically out of the concrete retaining wall/foundations about every three feet, which are now sheared off and frayed. There are three pits with concrete retaining walls at the south end of this, about 40 feet across and sort shaped like Oklahoma turned 90 degrees. They are mostly filled in with trees and reeds now.
I got some pics, plus a topo map showing this from 1948. There is a lot of iron at this site (I brought a metal detector). Lots of HUGE bolts and washers and other iron pieces everywhere.
There is no record of this place anywhere I can find, which may indicate what it was. Anthracite coal is all over the site as well, so I thought maybe it was a locomotive works, but I can't find any history of anything like that there. It is sandwiched between the still operational NYC main line and the abandoned Lehigh Valley line.
Here's the topo map from 1948. Arrow points to three red lines which are where this site lies. I see nothing else marked in red like that on any topo map.
http://storage.kellimcmillan.com/kmcmillan/kel/42.55.17.58_-78.36.5.43/depw48nea-marked.jpg
The site on Google Maps: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=42.921550,+-78.601508&num=1&t=h&vps=1&jsv=268b&sll=42.900614,-78.670306&sspn=0.016348,0.032015&hl=en&ie=UTF8&geocode=FU7ujgId3KJQ-w&split=0
And finally, the pics I took: http://storage.kellimcmillan.com/kmcmillan/kel/42.55.17.58_-78.36.5.43/
What do you think this is???