FLORENCE - Working in bridge construction, Paul Haralson has found some very interesting items while clearing debris from creeks and from under bridges.
But nothing compares to what he found a few weeks ago while working on the new bridge on Rasch Road.
"We had torn out the old bridge and were cleaning out the debris from the creek," said Haralson, owner of Shotcrete of America. "I was in the creek with a trackhoe scooping up the debris and clearing out the creek some. I had already made a couple of scoops with the bucket, and when I pulled the bucket up, there it was.
"Right there in the middle of the bucket pointing at me was a machine gun."
It was a Browning M1919 air-cooled machine gun - a weapon developed at the end of the World War I and used in World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.
"Over the years, I've found bicycles, televisions, a motorcycle, tires and other things, but never a machine gun. I was surprised," Haralson said.
There was no doubt in his mind what the item was when he saw it.
"I could tell exactly what it was as soon as it came up in the bucket," he said with a laugh.
Members of Haralson's crew carefully unloaded the weapon and placed it in the back of his truck. Haralson drove to the sheriff's department and turned it over to Sheriff Ronnie Willis.
Willis said his office has been in touch with agents from Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms about the weapon.
"No one has any idea of where it came from or how it got in the creek," Willis said.
The bridge, which crosses Little Cypress Creek, is the county's oldest. The 74-year-old structure is at the base of Rasch Hill.
Willis said he is hoping to clean the weapon enough to get a serial number from it, which could help provide more information.
"I'd love to know how it got in the creek. But that's anybody's guess," the sheriff said.
Haralson said it was stuck in the creek bed under a lot of mud and muck.
"It could have been stolen and thrown in the creek to hide; who knows," Willis said. "There's no telling how long the weapon has been in the creek."
According to the American Gunsmithing Institute, the weapon, in its heyday, would be placed on a tripod and required two- or three-man teams to operate. The weapon was carried by a gunner and the tripod and ammunition carried by the other members of the team.
The weapon also could be placed on a swivel on a Jeep or other vehicle.
"It's definitely a conversation piece around the office," Willis said. "It would be interesting to try and track its history. Who knows where the gun has been or where it was used."
Haralson said the gun must have been in the creek for several years because it was so deep in the mud.
"And it could have been there a lot of longer if we hadn't been working on replacing the bridge," he said. "There's hundreds of creeks throughout the county, and there's no telling what's been thrown in them. This just goes to show, you never know what you can find in a creek."
http://www.timesdaily.com/article/20100405/ARTICLES/4055015/1011/NEWS?Title=Construction-crews-find-vintage-machine-gun#
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