1 January 2013 Indian Territory Treasure Hunters Club Club Motto: Dig For Fun, Restore When Done 2013 Happy New Year! Inside this issue: Amazon.com 2 Membership Dues 2 Club Christmas Party 2 Newsletter Article Contest 3 Community Service & Christmas Project Detailed January Program 3 January Birthdays & Anniversaries Club Member of the Year 4 50/50 Pot Volunteer Needed 4 Broken Arrow Neighbors Thank You Letter Club Hunt at the LeBosquet Mine. 3 4 5 6-8 Member Donated Articles 9-11 Calendar of Events Jan 12th - ITTHC General Meeting Owasso Community Center 301 S. Cedar Street Owasso, OK --------------------------------------------- Jan 24th - ITTHC Board Meeting Kaman Bearing - 6:30 pm 416 S. Utica - South Door Tulsa, OK --------------------------------------------- Feb 8th - ITTHC General Meeting Friday Show & Tell and 2012 Find of the Year --------------------------------------------- Feb 16th - Scavenger Hunt and Chili Supper - Bingo Party Creek County Fairgrounds --------------------------------------------- May 25-26 - 42nd Annual ITTHC National Treasure Hunt Creek County Fairgrounds JANUARY PROGRAM Mike Massey will speak about the Newest Route 66 Historical Attraction - The "Route 66 Village" (see page 3 for more details) ********** Announcing of the 2012 Club Member of the Year. ********** At this time no hunt has been scheduled. COOKIE VOLUNTEERS John & Jody Hamilton Pam Cook Bill Watkins (Thanks!) Find of the Month Since we don t have a FOM in December, be sure to bring items you have found for the last two months to enter in January. (Found since November meeting.)
2 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 2 AMAZON.COM Club Christmas Party Well Christmas is over and the New Year is hear and I hope that you had a good holiday. However, there are birthdays and anniversaries coming up and you can still order presents from Amazon.com. What is cool is that sometimes shipping is free and best of all you can have it delivered to your doorstep. If you want some of this money that you spent to go to the club you can do so by going to the main page of the ITTHC web site at www.itthc.com and click on the Amazon icon at the bottom of the page. This will take you to Amazon.com where you can order anything that you desire. By doing this Amazon will give the club 4% of your purchase if it comes from Amazon and 3% if it comes from elsewhere. 2013 Member Dues It s time to pay dues. Only $25 Walmart can t beat this deal Thanks to all who helped make our Christmas party a success. We had lots of delicious food and a good time was had by all. Santa wants to especially thank Pam Cook for helping with the children s gifts.
3 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 3 NEWSLETTER ARTICLE CONTEST FOR 2013 During the year 2013 I am going to have a contest for those that send me the most articles that can be used in the monthly newsletter. The articles need to be on some aspect of metal detecting or treasure hunting such as tips on how to do something, tips on technique, new equipment you have tried, personal experience, finds that you think are pretty cool, comments about something relating to the subject. I will keep tabs on who sent what and at the end of the year a prize will be given to the top three donors that participated. The prizes will be: First Place a one ounce silver round. Second Place a silver half. Third Place a silver quarter. JANUARY PROGRAM Mike Massey will speak about the Newest Route 66 Historical Attraction - The "Route 66 Village" which is an outdoor historic education site with a transportation theme designed to showcase Tulsa's Fabulous Route 66, Railroad, Airline and Petroleum Heritage. It is located at 3770 Southwest Blvd, Tulsa, OK. Members are encouraged to bring any railroad, transportation or Tulsa historical item for show or donation. Thank you Wally for setting this up. Community Service Project January Needs List Beef Stew or Chili Instant Potatoes. Hot Cereal Boxed or Bagged Rice Cake Mix. Canned Fish Boxed Pudding Mix Cold Drink Mixes. Tomato Sauce A great job was done today by elves: Lee & Marge, Tom & Dot, Jim & Jeanie, Willy along with Wally & Jean! We filled a total of 50 stockings which will be given to our community service partner - Broken Arrow Neighbors - to be distributed to those in need this Christmas. Thanks to all the elves in our club who helped make this another successful year of giving back to our community! Merry Christmas! We need to be out there detecting and digging. If it does get too cold to hunt here are some tips to take up your time. 1. Make sure your detector is clean and in good working order and most of all has fresh batteries. 2. Be scouting around for places to dig. 3. Go to the library and do some research on some old places that you have noticed. 4. Catch up on your treasure magazine reading. 5. Go thru your old finds you may have missed a good one.
4 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 4 January Birthdays HAPPY BIRTHDAY Club Member of the Year You voted for one of the members below to be the Club Member of the Year from 2012. 01 Hope Coke 04 Mason Kinney 15 Bob Freeman 16 Barbara Freeman 17 Mark Gilbert 17 Dianna Neville 18 ITTHC 1969 23 Keith Sutton January Anniversaries Bill Watkins Wally Dick 14 Jim & Carol Nobles Pam Cook Cody Reese 25 Francis & Mary Tracy 27 Bill & Suzanne Watkins The Club Member of the Year award will be presented at our January meeting on January 12th. 2013 Officers President: Cody Reese Vice President: Roger Eaton Secretary: Pam Cook Treasurer: Terry Humphries Parliamentarian: Chuck Marcum Board: Tim Adams Bob Cook John Hamilton Jim Nobles Bill Watkins VOLUNTEER FOR 50/50 NEEDED Jean Dick would like someone to volunteer to take over the 50-50 Pot for 2013. Jean and I think that some of the new members might want to volunteer for the position. It's a good way to get to know the members. Jean could always be a back-up for them if they can't make it to a meeting or outing. Let s get the younger members more involved in club activities.
I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 5 5
6 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 6 Club Hunt at the LeBosquet Coal Mine There were 27 ITTHC members in attendence for our third outing December 15th to the coal mining camps in the area of the LeBosquet Mine No. 1. The photograph in the heading above is actually the Turkey Creek coal mine in 1902 that was 1½ miles to the west. Could not find a period photograph of the LeBosquet mine, it would be very similar to the Turkey Creek mine. The site of the LeBosquet camp housing that was cleared of brush, briars, & trees since our second outing was hard as a rock. Not only hard as rock, but loaded with rock, iron, tin, & pot metal. Talking to the landowners in the area they are more than 20 inches below normal on rainfall. With it that dry not only was it hard digging, but the depth of detection is greatly reduced. The weather was about perfect for an outing with the high temperature of almost 70, in the middle of December! The LeBosquet Coal & Mining Co. Mine No. 1 operated from 1902 until approximately 1929 with peak activity from 1920 to 1925. The company housing area grew to more than 50 houses for the employees (which they were charged for) plus the buildings for the mine operations. The below photograph is of the LeBosquet housing camp cropped from a 1902 larger photograph of the camp. The bottom map is cropped from the 1909 Quad map. In the photograph you can see the railroad spur that on the 1909 map is shown going to the mine. The X on the map is the approximate location on the hill that the photograph was taken. There were in total lots of items found. Coins: Indian Head Cents, Wheat Cents, V-Nickels, Barber Dimes, Mercury Dimes, and even an 1899 English Big Penny. Miner s checks, a
7 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 7 miner s pick & other tools, carbide lamp parts, brass padlocks, pocket watches & parts, a 1904 Theodore Roosevelt campaign watch fob, pocket knives, some jewelry items, shotgun shells, and loads of assorted copper, brass, iron & other metals. Miner s checks are a good find and a tie to the history of coal mining. Those with the company names or abbreviations are the better ones to find. There were several LeB. C. & M. Co. Mine No. 1 miner s checks found and at least one K. I. C. miner check found that I know of, not everybody has checked in with there finds. The K. I. C. was for the Kali-Inla Coal company. Have been told that Kali-Inla is Choctaw for Iron Horse, don t know if it is true or not. There were quite a few of the generic, no company name, miner s check found. Here is an explanation of the miner s checks taken from a 1907 International Library of Technology coal mining textbook from the days of You Load 16 Tons and What Do You Get : Where men are paid for mining coal by the weight they mine, they receive credit for the coal either as run-of-mine or as screened coal. In the first case, the coal is weighed before it is dumped into the chute. In the second case, it is weighed after it has passed over screen bars of a certain length and size and having a certain width of spaces between the bars, that is, over a standard screen for the given region, and the miners are then paid only for the screened coal. Where coal is paid for by weight, the miners in many cases hire a check-weighman, whose duty is to check the weights as found by the company weighmaster and to see that full credit is given to the miners, and further to see that the scales are in proper condition to weigh accurately. Each miner is usually designated by a number, and when he sends a car of coal to the tipple he hangs on the car a check, usually made of tin or brass, that has his number stamped on it. As soon as the mine car is weighed and dumped, or damped without weighing, as the case may be. The check is taken from it by the top man and hung on a board, or delivered to the check-weighman. This must be done in the order in which the cars are weighed and dumped that the miner may receive proper credit for his coal. If the scale room is situated at some distance from the dump, the miners* checks are sent from the dump to the weighman through a chute, and if a docking boss is employed to dock for rock mixed with the coal, the dump platform may be connected with the weigh office by speaking tubes, so that thie docking boss can report to the weighmaster the dockage for each car as it is dumped.
8 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 8 Hope everyone had a good time, gained an appreciation of the history of coal mining in the Choctaw Nation, and the hard life of those early coal miners. Even though it was hard, dangerous, and dirty work it was still some of the best paying jobs in that time. If you missed this outing, don t miss the next one! Jodys first coin: 1890 Indian Head Penney
9 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 9 MEMBER DONATED ARTICLES HOW I GOT INTO THIS HOBBY submitted by Lee Wierzchowski Back about seventeen years ago our family decided to spend some time at a beach for the day. We headed out to Ft. Gibson Lake and stopped at Rocky Point; small beach but nice sand for the kids to play in. Just sitting around and chatting while watching the folks in the water I noticed a guy that wasn t swimming. He was just walking around in the water with a headset on his head. Sure was a strange way to be listening to music. Not only was he listening but once in while he pulled up this long handled tool. The curiosity got the best of me and I got up and went to ask the guy some questions. He told me he was using a metal detector. I had seen them years earlier but not in the water. Kindly he explained what he was doing and invited me to a club in Tulsa. You can ask Wally about the rest of the story. Not only did I join ITTHC but Wally even sold me my first water machine, the same one I use today. I was hooked and wandered into a whole new world of excitement, new friends and fellowship. That was a long time ago, but seems like only yesterday. Sure was a lucky break. I ve enjoyed these years and hope to have many more watching the younger folks get involved and share their surprise and joy with the rest of us. ***************************************************************************
10 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 10 MEMBER DONATED ARTICLES cont d First printed in September 2000 GPS, Maps, and Relic Hunting By Chuck Marcum You have always heard that the key to finding relics is research, but all the time you invest in doing that research will be wasted if you can t find your site. You need to be 100% sure that you ve reached your researched destination. Sometimes you can be a few hundred feet from a spot and miss it completely. If your site is next to a section line road you won t have any problems you can clock from the corner and step a distance out to it. If your site is out in the middle of a section with no roads or fences to go by, in the middle of a forest where you can t see a hundred feet in front of you, or maybe even out on the lake where the water level is always changing you re going to need help. Any tool you can use to give you an edge to finding that spot ought to be taken advantage of. Today s technology has provided us with these tools, they are a combination of digital maps and hand held GPS receivers. If you can put your site on a 7.5 minute quadrangle map, get your latitude and longitude to the site, and learn to follow a Gps receiver I can guarantee that you ll get within 100 ft. of that site no matter where it is. There are a lot of different digital map sites available where you can download USGS 7.5 Minute Quads. I m more familiar with Delorme s 3-D Topo Quads Software. Oklahoma comes on 6 CDs. To find a location you just type in the nearest town or landmark, any place you stop your curser it ll give you the latitude, longitude, and elevation. I can also download my GPS into Delorme and all my waypoints will show up on the map or I can upload waypoints or routes into my Gps from Delorme. For more information on this software you can go to their site at www.delorme.com Before getting this software I had a plastic overlay I d have to put over the paper map. Then I d have to add or subtract latitude and longitude it was also in the old 1927 Datum. Delorme is very simple to use. I m going to use the ghost town Appalachia for an example. I hunt it every once in a while looking for a token for Jack with no luck so far. The first thing you need to do is to get all the old maps you can get pertaining to your site. Next you need to transfer the site from the old map onto the new map. You can do that in a number of different ways, by eyeballing it, by making an overlay, or by scaling it off of the section lines. After you have it on the new map you have to get coordinates to it. There are different coordinates you can use such as latitude and longitude, UTM, or military grid. I m more familiar with latitude and longitude. With Delorme you can stop the curser right on your site that you put on the new map and the latitude and longitude will show for that position. Next you need to enter the latitude and longitude into your GPS. Now your map work is done all you have to do is follow your GPS right to your site. One thing to remember is that your original source has to be accurate. The GPS will take you to the spot you put on the new map. We had an outing awhile back to a Mission we used one old map as a source. We plotted it on a new map followed the GPS to the position but the site wasn t there. The map wasn t any good. It is best to get all the old maps you can and compare all of them. When you are Relic
11 I.T.T.H.C. Treasure News Page 11 MEMBER DONATED ARTICLES cont d Hunting you will eliminate a whole lot more sites than you will find. There are a lot of different brands and types of GPS receivers on the market today. There are units for cars, boats, and Surveying. The perfect one for relic hunting, hiking, fishing, and hunting is the compact handheld. The accuracy now for a good model is anywhere + - 1ft. to 80 ft. Close enough for swinging. I bought my receiver two and a half years ago. I decided on a Lowrance Global Map 100. I chose a Lowrance because the factory is located on Skelly Drive between 11th St. and I-44 in Tulsa. It s a good thing I did because recently I was downloading a software upgrade from their web site into my computer then I uploaded it into my GPS. The next day I noticed my maps had disappeared from my GPS screen. I uploaded a couple of more maps from my Map Select CD, still no maps on the screen. I called the support person at Lowrance and she couldn t figure out what it was. At lunch time I drove over to the factory and went into the service department. A technician looked at it for a while I was getting a little discouraged, then he took it into the back probably conferring with other techs. He came out and showed me what it was. The navionics got turned on when I was upgrading. The moral of this story is to buy local. If I had another brand I would of had to send it to their factory, pay shipping, been out of a GPS for a couple of months, and maybe even a repair bill for their labor since it was out of warranty. I decided on the Global Map 100 because I am a map freak. The unit comes with a background map and has three different map screens. I got the package which included Mapselect software on CD where I can upload more detailed maps than the background map has. I can also make custom maps to upload. It also came with a computer cord. I paid $450 for the package. I think it s about $100 less today. I haven t seen the package price. The unit itself is $199 The Mapselect CD and cord is $160 now. You can get by with just the unit but I would also recommend getting a download cable, you can use it with other software. You can also download GDM 16 from the Lowrance site. It ll let you download your waypoints along with some other features. Lowrance s address is www.lowrance.com When you enter the coordinates you are creating a waypoint. You can name your waypoints. I have named the ones below Appalachia and intersection 3. My receiver will store 750 points. You can also set points with the map curser on the screen or set one at your current position. The place you park is a good spot to set one. It saved us more than once. You then want to navigate to your waypoint which is your site. The navigation screen will give you a compass bearing in degrees. North being 360 or 0, East being 90, and south being 180. You ll need a compass with the bearings on it. The distance is shown in miles and tenths. A tenth of a mile being 528 ft. When you get closer than a tenth it will be in ft. In the example below the direction or bearing is N 111 E a distance of 950 ft. Once you get used to it it s pretty simple and if the site isn t there you ll know your source was wrong because you went to the exact spot it said it was. Anyone interested in more info. give me a call maybe we can go hunt and I ll show you how good it works. One of the 3 Map Screens One of the Navigation Screens New map with the Waypoints & Coordinates downloaded to it.
12 The ITTHC Treasure News is published by The Indian Territory Treasure Hunters Club, Inc. P.O. Box 580961 Tulsa, OK 74158-0961 Editor: Bill Watkins editor@itthc.com Webmaster: Bob Freeman webmaster@itthc.com The general meeting of ITTHC is held the second Saturday of every month at the Owasso Community Center, 301 South Cedar Street, Owasso, OK at 7:30 p.m. VISITORS ARE ALWAYS WELCOME! Membership dues are: $25.00/year Indian Territory Treasure Hunters Club P.O. Box 580961 Tulsa, OK 74158-0961 We re on the web! www.itthc.com FIRST CLASS MAIL