A woman was surprised to find old slips of paper underneath her floorboards, revealing a bit of local history.
Heather Utt’s home in Gassaway, West Virginia, is over 100 years old and has been standing there since before the local train depot was built. While renovating the house, which she has lived in since March 2022, Utt discovered old slips of paper dated back to 1913.
“It was a slip for short or damaged cargo on the train,” she told Newsweek. “I believe it was for the railroad in the small town I live in.
“It would have been before the depot was built. The depot is still down the street but has shut down, and they have taken the railroad tracks up. Unfortunately, it was in so many pieces, it was hard to tell exactly what was going on.
“There are a few names on it that can be made out. We have found a few cool things in the house since we have started renovating,” Utt added.
Heather Utt/Facebook
Utt shared her discovery in the Facebook group Our Old House, which is full of members who live in old or historic homes. In the post, which received hundreds of reactions, she shows the slips of paper that she found, which appear to have been printed by the Coal and Coke Railway Company.
“I found this under a loose board in my attic today. It’s dated July 21, 1913,” Utt wrote.
Heather Utt/Facebook
The sale of old homes far outweighs that of new builds in the U.S. In 2024, over 4 million existing homes were purchased in the country, according to Statista, compared to fewer than 1 million newly-built ones.
People took to the comments section of Utt’s post in the Facebook group to share their reactions to her discovery.
Replying to one comment, Utt wrote that she plans to keep the slips of paper and frame them.
“My grandfather was a foreman on the Pennsylvania Reading railroad. That’s a pretty cool find!” posted Treasure Gale Langley.
Rachael Gregory shared: “We found my great-grandpa’s pay stubs from L&N Railroad when he was a section master before he retired in 1974. He passed 2 years later (8 years before I was born so I never met the man), but I love stuff like this.”
“Someone living at the house was a coal dealer, or, worked for the railroad. the rail road car was robbed. someone shoveled out of the car. Or there was a mistake by the railroad, like they failed to attach a car,” Norman Graham said.
John Ciriello wrote: “Frame them and keep away from bright windows so they don’t fade.”
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