Thu 5 Apr 2007
Hazardous Consequences: Mystery of the Vault Contest
Posted by WillR under ChapelHill , CitizenWill , Community , Downtown , EconomicDevelopment , Ruminations[11] Comments
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Will,
Thanks for running the contest. I have no actual information about what the vault might contain, just speculation based on Ross Norwood Esso. My suggestions of a vault of cash are a bit tongue in cheek, but are within the margin of error.
See Mike’s entry
http://orangepolitics.org/2007/02/share-your-chapel-hill-story/ Comment at 7:07am 3/21/2007 “Worked at Norwoods Esso
– Norwood challenged good ethics – daily”
and mine
http://orangepolitics.org/2007/02/open-thread-for-lot-5/#comment-109053 Comment at 6:18am 2/16/2007
“This is WWWAAAYY off the point of RAM, but it is about lot 5 and vicinity. but I remember doing a Daily Tar Heel expose piece on Norwood’s ESSO around 1970, he had one of the earliest self-service gas pumps, but this was b4 credit card activation and there was a machine you fed dollar bills into. The story ’round town was that you didn’t actually get any gas, it stole your money, when you complained, you’d just get the stare down from Norwood or one of his thug attendants. I went with five ones, put them in the machine, took out the pump handle, the machine did nothing, no gas, no nothing. I went to the attendant, who came over and verified that I did not get any gas, and brazenly told me that if it did not pump any gas, it meant that I had NOT out any money in. I got out my reporter looking notepad and asked the attendant for his name. He asked me why, I told him “for the name on the warrant”. He unlocked the machine, it was JAMMED to the gills with an enormous amount of cash. He asked me how much I lost, I told him $5, he reached in and got out five ones, handed them to me and stormed off after locking the machine. I remember writing either an news story or column about it. Norwood had expanded the station, and at some point when his lease was cancelled, he got up on the roof and began to saw off the roof at the point of the old building line saying he was removing the expansion. The lessor got a court order to get him off the property. For the longest time you could see the power saw marks on the roof. This was today in Lot 5 history.”
So, Gerry, do you want to stick with massive wads of cash? Maybe they added a secret chute that would send 1 of every 2 bills down to the hidden vault?
What about an outlandish suggestion? Did Chapel Hill have its own Roswell incident – with the alien remains safely tucked away under Lot #5?
Based on the graphic Will posted with the location of the underground vault and my recollection of the site in the early 70s, I’d say it was located right under where the service station was.
Interestingly reading the site report from the geophysical consultants, under site history it mentions ONLY residences on the site and speculates about the type of heating oil used, but later in the report it talks about former service station(s) on the site.
A stack of well used, old Rigid Tool calendars.
The report is an interesting read – including some bits that appeared to be added part way through the report like the points you noted. For instance, page 6 of the letter you reference says:
No mention of Hunam’s.
Then they reference the removal of the Happy Store gas station tanks as a REC:
but doesn’t make any case for that leak being associated with the current situation (in other words, why mention it?).
The 2004 report [PDF] goes into some detail about this
with a further note that this represents the one (1) potential off-site source of contamination. Of course, the contamination noted in the new report has a stronger correlation with the two “mystery” features than the Happy Store.
McFarling’s Exxon (which has recently sold, btw) doesn’t appear to have had any issues that would contribute to mystery feature B areas contamination (SB 1,10). The other significant contamination clusters just South of the mystery vault (feature A – SB 5,6,7).
Strangely, while they note “The lot slopes from the eastern-central portion of the site slightly toward Franklin” and both cluster of contamination spread South from both features towards Franklin St. – the chance that these features are associated with the contamination are discounted.
One of my neighbors has just entered his guess over at Squeeze the Pulp, and a timely one it is:
http://squeezethepulp.com/viewtopic.php?p=4675#4675
I’ll leave you to decide which catagory the guess falls into.
Cross posting from OP:
I think the vault is really a time capsule, buried in 1976.
Inside will be: the missing portrait of Rev. James Pleasant Mason; a copy of Give Us a Break (Arrogance); the first pair of Birkenstocks ever sold in Chapel Hill; the first menu from Wildflower Kitchen; and the secret recipe for Limeade from Colonial Drugs.
A layer of dust. Can’t wait for the dinner at La Rez!
Tried to leave this over the weekend.
My offbeat guess: can’t remember, but it sure was funny at the time
My actual guess: an old greasepit. The ones under Copytron were covered with metal plates.
The asnwer is old air, for both.