Is This A Good Place To Metal Detect?

Definitely yes, to start with.

If it was a few miles from a town with a bank, it is possible that people buried their savings right in the yard somewhere. Favoured places were usually by fenceposts within seeing distance from the house. Former outhouse pits can sometimes yield jewellery and coins, as can the pathway to the outhouse.

Not only metal detecting is great in these kinds of places. Find where the garbage pile was too; usually this was throwing distance from the back porch. There you can find such things as collectible bottles; old beer cans in fair shape (yes, even those that look rusty) can also be worthwhile (there are chemical treatments to get surface rust off of what is uaually a very thick coating of paint).

Woods can be very good to search through as well, especially if there were well-travelled paths through them, old outbuildings such as sheds within them, etc. Depending on the area of the country you are located in, there may have even been Civil War campsites located there, which might not only bring coins, but also badges, medals, belt buckles, and bullets.

Search it all over, leave no stone unturned. Incidentally, what part of the country is it in, generally speaking?

Just a tip remember to reset your detector when you transition from different types of terrain.

Central Illinois = lots of history = lots of potential.

I think I would wait until the snow is gone, the ground thaws, and it dries up. It's a lot easier digging dry than wet, and it's not as if anything is going to go anywhere until then. What you could do in the meantime is scope out the area on Google Earth and do a bird's-eye view to check the features for things like ravines and other natural landforms that may lend themselves to being natural hiding places and the like. You could also do some research on the area and determine the locations of such things as where commercial establishments used to be in the general area, not to mention such things as stores, Post Offices, bars, etc.

-UPDATE-

Going sometime over Spring Break - Definately on Easter - maybe even a partial sweep sometime before.

Peoria County is the Location I am going.

Here's a catalog of the Rumsey maps for Illinois, you may find something here.

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/ser.../view/search jsessionid=AFF6FB007D7C72FBEE4676DD2DA9814D?q=Illinois&sort=Pub_Date%2CPub_List_No%2CSeries_No&search=Search

SilverTurtle,




Probably not. There isn't enough detail and points of interest are not included (train stations, parks, historical sites, etc.).

The old standby method is to find an "Old-Timer" who has been in the area for 50+ years, buy 'em a cup of coffee and listen to their stories. This is by far the best way to learn what was going on way back when.