The week I pulled a 1950s car fender out of the silt

Back in 2018 I was working a river cleanup job near Memphis, just standard debris removal. Then on a Thursday afternoon, my bucket snagged something solid that didn't budge like a tire or log. Turns out it was a whole fender from a 1952 Chevy, still had some faded blue paint on it. The operator on the next barge said his dad used to run these waters in the 70s and saw cars discarded after floods. Has anyone else dug up anything that made you stop and wonder about the history sitting under the mud?

2 comments

2 Comments

barbara3991mo ago

And that paint being preserved after 60+ years in mud tells you something about how TOTALLY different those rivers were before all the levees and channeling. Makes you wonder how many more cars, boats, or even whole structures are just sitting down there waiting for the next big cleanup or flood to turn them up.

lewis.diana1mo ago

Read some archaeologist talk about how old motor oil and leaded gas basically act like a preservative in that anaerobic mud, keeps stuff from rusting or rotting away. They found a whole 1950s Ford in a dried-up riverbed down South a few years back, paint still had the original flame decals on it. Makes you wonder what else is down there, like old steamboats or even cars people dumped to claim insurance back in the day. Bet there's a lot of history just waiting for the next drought to turn up.