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From the Arizona Daily Sun 11/20/09:

Mystery safe
Two men hiking on Schultz Creek Trail find an old safe with the door blown open.

By LARRY HENDRICKS
Assistant City Editor
Friday, November 20, 2009

The mystery started with a hike. Neil "Jaxon" Jackson and Bob Standfast chose to hike the Schultz Creek Trail a few weeks ago. A metal object on his left caught Jaxon's eye.

"We were hiking on the trail together, and I noticed it," Jaxon said. "So I went to check it out." They saw it was a safe, and the safe's door was blown open with some sort of an explosive. The combination wheel was gone.

Jaxon said he believes somebody blew the safe open on Schultz Pass Road above, then discarded the safe over the side, letting the safe come to rest in a grassy area.

Where did the safe come from?

"We're just curious, mostly," Jaxon said. We're just interested in the area's history and we thought this would be a nice little project to investigate."

Last week, the two men with the help of a truck and a winch, hauled the safe up the hill to Schultz Pass Road and drove it to the Pioneer Museum in Flagstaff.

"I have no clue how the thing got there," said Joe Meehan, curator of the Pioneer Museum. He compared the safe's dimensions with known robbery stories of the area and found no matches. The safe has no identifying marks, Meehan added, which makes the trail go cold.

Meehan said he believes the safe is from the 1930s and that it was obviously blown open.

"It was definitely somebody who didn't know the combination to the safe," Meehan said, laughing.

Jaxon said the safe, instead of being cast, is actually made of sheet metal.

His quest to find the safe's origins began with the Coconino County Sheriff's Office, but Tom Ross, the lead evidence technician there, did some research and discovered the safe was not involved with any cold cases in the county.

Jaxon has also contacted state historian Marshall Trimble, and Trimble told him he knew of no stories involving a safe similar to the one Jaxon and Standfast found.

The men are still awaiting word from local historians Richard and Sherry Mangum to hear if they know of a story involving a safe that matches the one they found.

When Jaxon gets some time, he said he will begin the arduous task of looking through old Arizona Daily Sun archives at Cline Library for clues.

In the meantime, the mystery remains, he said, adding that the mystery might never be solved.

The safe will eventually become a table on Jaxon's patio.

Daily Sun Comments wrote:citizen wrote on Nov 20, 2009 9:45 AM:
" I don't understand why they get to keep the safe and make it into a table, instead of leaving it at the museum or putting it back in the forest. Doesn't that violate the Antiquities Act? I thought we weren't allowed to take historic artifacts off of public lands.

Someone please respond about this? Otherwise I'm raiding a bunch of cool spots I know of this afternoon. (just kidding!) "

MIKE wrote on Nov 20, 2009 9:29 AM:
" I thought it was illegal to take antiquities off of public lands. "

Jason Carpenter wrote on Nov 20, 2009 8:33 AM:
" This story frustrates me. The “curiosity” of these two men has led to the removal of a local relic that MANY before you have observed and pondered over- we’ve been biking/hiking past this safe for years. But we’ve done just that; looked and didn’t touch. I’m stumped by the impudence someone would have to remove property that isn’t theirs from land that’s also not theirs simply to satisfy their curiosity. To no surprise of my own; Jaxon, after learning of no juicy history behind the safe, plans to make a table out of the stolen property.
Thousands before you have appreciated the peculiarity of this out-of-place remnant. Hope you enjoy your ill-gotten conversation starter of a coffee table Jaxon. I wonder if the table will be adorned with pot shards and arrow heads???
It’s not too late to put it back… "

chumley wrote:At what point does trash become an historic artifact/antiquity?