Hidden treasure discovered in walls of Carnegie Building

Chamber of commerce employees were surprised to find a newspaper dated 80 years to the day prior to its discovery, inside the walls of the Carnegie Building in Nevada on July 8. -Rusty Murry/Daily Mail

History has a way of catching up with us when we least expect it. That's what happened last week, as a small repair and remodeling project was under way at the Carnegie Building in Nevada.

A portion of the wall was torn away for the project and Cindy Johnson of the Nevada/Vernon County Area Chamber of Commerce office noticed this page of a Kansas City Star newspaper protruding from within the wall on Wednesday, July 8.

Johnson retrieved the scrap of paper, and upon examination it was noticed that the date on the paper was Sunday, July 8, 1928.

Everyone in the office agreed that it was kind of "freaky," and executive director Cat McGrath-Farmer said, "It made the hair stand up on my arms when she told me the date."

The newspaper was apparently stuffed into the wall as insulation, a common practice of the day. Other than the coincidence of finding the newspaper page 80 years to the day from its publication, there was nothing particularly newsworthy about that date in history contained in the page, although some historical research revealed that if it had been a sports page, it might have revealed that on that date, the Phillies set record of playing an errorless 25-inning doubleheader.

Since the Carnegie Building was originally erected in 1916, the newspaper obviously was added after that, probably when a subsequent change was made.