Amazing Junk? Car Buff Fun!

Old farms in our area often have old vehicles dumped into the 'dry runs'. I imagine that it served a two fold purpose. Get rid of the old car and slow down the rush of water to slow erosion. 

I don't see that it was especially effective, however I decided to see what I could find. 

This dry run is part of our original farm before it was split up in the 1980's. I'd have to check my papers, but the previous owners to the 1980's had a large tract of farm land and woods. The ownership on this farm goes all the way back to just after the Civil War. I believe that I read that the farm was part of a grant of some sort.

With that history out of the way, I decided to explore the dry runs that feed into my creek. I do have permission from my western neighbors to explore their land, but I've never explored this section.

To my huge surprise I found the perfect junk yard.

This dry run held 3 vehicles and parts of a stove of some sort and unidentifiable things.

Here is the hood to this car. A Chevrolet!

The interior

I imagine when this vehicle had seen its last days, they pulled out the engine and dragged it to the edge of the dry run and pushed it down. I walked around it and found this tag attached to the body.

I did 'google' these numbers and the one thing I know for sure is that the paint # is for black. I found a lot of images of what this might look like. The following one is probably more closer than some of the ones I found on Antique car sights. Of course I did not find or see a hood ornament like this one. It may be buried under 70 or so years of dirt and debris.

However, I think it was broken off.

There were two more vehicles in this ditch.

I have no clue what this may even be! But I will have to go back and explore some more. It looked as if the roof of the car had been cut off and it had a rubber seal around it.

It was definitely a two door and a search of a body number related to Briggs Mfg. Co. brought up nothing. Well, nothing that I could decipher. There was a discussion of sales for these tags though!

Who knew? My neighbor may have some gold buried in his dry runs!

I'd like to go back on a better day and get some photos of the dashboard.

Anyway, on to mystery car number 3. 

At first I was sure these had to be Model A's. When I got home I put the numbers in a search engine. The first few numbers indicated a Buick of some kind. PJ 113110 the letters BCD just confused the search engine.

It was fun to try though.

Under one of the vehicles there were stove parts. Did they all get chucked in the ditch at the same time or what? I won't ever know.

I left this dry run and started around the ridge to the next one. I found this prize but didn't stop to check it out. Did this farm really have this many vehicles???

This last photo is of a dry run just on the other side of our fence line to the west.

I've photographed this vehicle a lot over the years as it is 30 seconds from my porch. As you can see, it may or may not slow down the water when it runs!

It has a partner vehicle just 20 or so feet from it. Right now it is covered in brush and bulldozed trees. Here is what it looked like a few years ago.

So far I've counted 6 old vehicles in ditches within short walks from my house. 

I think I do need to walk to another spot where in the past I did note model T's or model A's era vehicles on my east neighbor's land. 

What treasures!

I don't have much knowledge about old cars, but this is really quite interesting. Apparently, I just need to explore the dry runs near old farmsteads just below the ridge tops.

I've found more than one Homestead junk yard while hiking the Reserve. Of course one has to know where to look and after exploring our surrounding forest here, I've got a pretty good idea of how to find the cool Junk.

Imagine if these items could tell their stories. Wouldn't that be amazing?