Thought some of you may find this interesting. This may be one of the oldest things I’ve found on my grandparents farm where I now live. It was a farm long before my grandfather purchased it. In the oldest barn/garage still existing there was always this relatively large wooden area up in the rafters against the gable. My mom said it was called the pigeon coop when she was young. No one ever ventured up there that I’m aware of because the crossties on this building were poorly constructed and quite weak. Back in the 90’s when I built my house I decided to put a ladder up there and take a look. Found an old leather horse yoke and a few boards. Saw a pile of paper generations of mice had nested and chewed to shreds. Went through it and discovered they were paper bags they used to sell charcoal in before my grandparents time. Interesting to note the phone number is 53.3 You can still see the rings on the property where they made the large fires to turn trees into charcoal. Made the frame from one of the boards in the coop.
I also grew up in an area with three digit phone numbers. Funny. Didn't have the decimal point in it like your did-perhaps a typo? Nope, no typo! Just saw the pic.
That’s cool. What years and area are you speaking of if I may ask? I’m not sure how old the bag is but it has to be at least from the 1920’s. Not ancient but as far back as I can reach these days LOL. We have pictures of the farm from the 20’s and trees are scarce. Probably why the owners sold and moved on. Even after my grandfather purchased the farm in 31 (I think) there was a “Indian” that lived at the back of the property in a little crude shack. He made a little money chopping down trees and selling firewood. Borrowed my grandfathers work horse when he wasn’t using him. Guess it was part of a package deal to let him keep living there.
That is beautiful jo191145. I don't remember off hand what the phone numbers where when I was young. Probably because we were poor and did not have a phone in our house. Neighbors did though and I remember the crank. There were generally 4 parties on a line. When I went to live with a neighbor, their ring was one long and one short. To get the operator of course was just one long. I also remember when those phones went out of style and rotary dial phones came on. Wow! That to us was amazing. Then, instead of a number like 845-9999 it was stated as Victor 5-9999. So if you called long distance, you dialed 0 and told the operator you wanted Victor 5-9999. Gradually the names went away and only numbers were used and of course, gradually operators went away, for the most part. Then the amazing thing was when cordless phones came on the scene. I was truly amazed. Yet, it has not been that many years since we finally got off a party line and also not that many years since we had a rotary dial phone.
That would be fun to put that name in ancestry (I paused my account). Might tell a lot about that family. He came from Germany in 1914 FamilySearch FamilySearch Theres a few Rankl families in the area about the same age, guessing brothers. Interred near by https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/71460020 FamilySearch Cool, RFD #2 East Hampton is address
Yes there’s still at least one Rankl farm near us. As a matter of fact the 80 or so trees the town cut down I’ve been scavenging were on Rankl property. One of these days I should drop by.
Very interesting! We have a history book on our town for our place in VT. Turns out, a lot of that forest was cut down to be burnt and then the potash sent to England. The land was then used for livestock grazing. Must have been a really interesting looking old growth forest back in the day.
