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Mysterious letters found in old trolley

By Christy Hutchings - bio | email

SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - It's a mystery! Letters from half a century ago turning up in a most unlikely place, a trolley! But what really makes it strange is the timing of it all.

One of the letters is dated October 9th, 1950. It says, "Dear Anne, Don't speak to me, I am furious with you for not answering my letter, you must really not have time to do anything." It's written on Southern Seminary letterhead from Buena Vista Virginia, but who wrote it, and who Anne is, is still a mystery.

Ian Ashenfelter a preservation carpenter for the Round House Museum found the letter to Anne, along with several others.  All with different postmarks, some from Athens, Thomasville, Sea Island, even Charleston, SC. 

Ashenfelter was looking over an old trolley car because the city was thinking about putting back into service, when the letters fell out of from behind the wall.

"It's the weirdest thing I ever found," said Ashenfelter. "Occasionally you will find something that's a little bit curious, but nothing that had this personal aspect."

There were other letters, Christmas cards, and stamps, all post marked from 1951. Terry Koller is the manager of railroad operations and says the discovery surprised everyone, especially coming from this trolley. "This is a Birney street car, a pretty small, early street car, that ran from the 19-teens to about the 1940's. Savannah phased those out in the early 40's and replaced them with larger street cars," said Koller.

Koller says once the car was retired the city would have sold it. "My guess is the street car was privately owned and somebody was using it for storage or maybe even a porch room, where somebody was leading letters or writing their mail and dropped behind the crack," said Koller.

Koller speculates "Anne" was probably in college when the letter was written. She'd be in her 70's or 80's now. It's just a guess, but they'd love the real story.

"It would be amazing if we could actually track down the person who wrote them or received the letters and come back here and maybe explain how they got in there. I don't know what the chances of that actually happening are," said Koller.

Koller adds, if he ever meets her, he has only one question. "How did the friendship work out, after being so furious?"

Koller and Ashenfelter are hoping somebody sees this story and comes up with the answers to the Roundhouse trolley car mystery.

If you know anything about the letters and can shed a little light on the mystery give us a call or contact CHS Railroad Operations at 912-651-2338 ext. 201 or ext. 217.

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