By Jon Mark Beilue at Amarillo.com

The Case of the Missing 300 Silver Dollars, or What In The World Is Something Like That Doing In A Place Like This, likely will never be solved. That they were actually uncovered is astonishing enough, but to find out why 300 Morgan silver dollars from 1887 in mint condition were under a foot of hardened soil on former Amarillo Mayor Jerry Hodge’s property, well, let your imagination be your guide.

Our story begins June 11. Plumbers were digging a trench to run utilities for a pool house and swimming pool on property Hodge had purchased adjacent to his home on Oldham Circle in Amarillo. Randy McMinn had a backhoe about a foot deep when on one particular scoop, mixed in with the dirt, was found a bunch of dingy little objects.

Whoa, time out. Work came to a halt, and closer inspection revealed them to be coins - old coins from 1887. Careful digging found a lot more in some kind of fine plastic, what Margaret, Hodge’s wife, described as sort of an old version of Saran Wrap. Lest anyone think plastic is a recent invention, plastic was used as early as World War I.

The coins had Lady Liberty on one side and the American eagle on the other. A little bit of homework found them to be Morgan silver dollars, which were minted from 1878 to 1904. A count of the coins totaled 100 … 150 … 200 … 250 … 300 of them.

Avast, matey, buried treasure!

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