(pickaxe hitting dirt)
- So we're trying to really
excavate the Claim Building
or at least find it.
It stood for about 16
years here on campus,
and it was the first
building built on CSU.
It housed the first president of CSU,
and it was a Chemistry
building for a while
and had a greenhouse attached to it.
So we just really want
to try just to learn
what we can about that first building.
- Ooh, look at that.
I kinda had a hunch that
this is where my life
would be headed is to Field Archeology,
and that's kinda just been affirmed
to actually be working on
a big project like this
has been awesome.
- All we had was the reports
of when the Claim Building
was built and also its dimensions.
And so last fall when I was
working with Mark Luebker
on this we narrowed down this area
in front of Routt and
Spruce Hall to conduct
a geophysical survey as
part of my class offering
called Digital Digging.
- In class you're getting the
theory and the idea behind it
and some of the methods
that you are supposed to use
as an archeologist, but out
here you're actually able
to participate in that, use the equipment,
learn how to take field notes,
just all that good stuff that you need
to actually participate
in the professional field.
- So this is an image that I've
kind of captured on my phone
of our ground penetrating radar data.
This diagonal line is
the modern walkway here,
and then you see two rectilinear features,
one is what we think is the foundation
of the Claim Building.
In fact it matches the exact dimensions
of the Claim Building.
And then we know that the Claim Building
had a greenhouse built
onto it the last few years
it was in use, and this
also matches the dimensions
that we know the greenhouse was built at.
- I found a dime from 1868.
It's a seated Liberty dime.
Just saw a little glint of silver
and then went and washed it off
and felt that was pretty awesome.
(tool scraping ground)
