House on St. Lucie County Historic Registry.
There is an old house on the corner of Midway Road and Indian River Drive that was built in 1901. This photo, which was clipped from the Hometown News, shows that house. It is the only house on the St. Lucie County Historic Registry and can be found discussed in a book that you can find in the Fort Pierce branch of the St. Lucie County Library. If I correctly recall, the title is something like The Historic Homes of Indian River Drive.
The house was lived in until the hurricanes of 2004 severely damaged the house. It went into foreclosure in 2008, and is now rotting away and either beyond repair or close to it.
I find it interesting, or is it paradoxical, that the state claims every coin, artifact or piece of junk that is over fifty years old (Yes, fifty years old!) that is found in the waterways of the state, yet this entire house, which is listed on the historic registry, rots away without any interest or efforts on the part of the state or other governmental agencies to save it.
Let me clarify a tad. Not only does anything over fifty years old found in a Florida waterway belong to the state, but it is illegal to remove objects over fifty years old from state waters.
Florida State waters include all submerged bottom lands including lakes, rivers, lagoons, and three miles out into the ocean on the East coast, nine miles out into the Gulf Coast, and twelve miles out from Key West.
As I recently reported, the government is in the process of redefining "their" water as almost any water including creeks, streams, and who knows, maybe even puddles.
Before May of 2005, there was in Florida what was referred to as the Isolated Finds Program, which permitted the removal of old objects if the item and all relevant information such as the location was reported to the state. In most cases the finder was permitted to keep such "isolated" finds.
I want to repeat this - the Isolated Finds Program has been done away with.
Back to the house. It was built from cypress wood salvaged from a wrecked barge.
If you want to read more about the house, here is a link.
http://www.myhometownnews.net/index.php?id=83541
Please forgive me if my interpretation of the law is not correct in all details. And please don't ask for clarification. I am in no position to provide a legal interpretation of Florida law. I am simply giving my impression from what I have read. If you have significant corrections or clarifications that should be added, feel free to send them to me. And feel free to do your own research if you need additional information.
The blog survey has concluded and the results are in. Well over ninety percent of the respondent think that the governmental rules and regulations that affect the metal detecting hobby are too restrictive. I'm not surprised by that.
When you think that you could drop a 1961 penny in the water and not be allowed to pick it up, that seems ridiculous. Yet as crazy as that sounds, I think it is technically correct.
Many of the people reading this are over fifty years old. An item isn't even an antique unless it is a hundred years old, yet you are not allowed to remove items over fifty years old. Who wrote these laws? Fifteen year-olds?
That seems too restrictive to me.
None of the respondents to the survey seemed to think that the rules were not restrictive enough, but nine people (about 6%) did think the rules were about right. I think I could guess what involvement those people have.
It is not an easy task to find all of the applicable laws and regulations. It seems to me that when it comes down to it, there are those who would rather them not be widely publicized and understood. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that is how it seems to me.
Well, it seems like only yesterday that gold went over $1700 an ounce. And then yesterday it hit over $1800 an ounce for a brief time, and gold was and maybe still is actually more expensive than platinum.
Treasure Coast Beach Forecast and Conditions.
There are now three tropical waves to watch. The first is right over us, but will not affect the beaches significantly. The other two are coming off of Africa and are still too far to be much concerned about.
The surf web site are showing flat seas for the next few days, not changing until Wednesday when they are now predicting four or five foot seas. As you probably know by now, the predictions they make that far in advance usually change.
Happy hunting,
TreasureGuide@comcast.net