The Mill That Hummed: A Dry Bobbin, A Hidden Room, One Impossible Sound

The Mill That Hummed: A Dry Bobbin, A Hidden Room, One Impossible Sound

An impossible fourteen-inch wooden bobbin lay bone-dry against a river retaining wall after nine days below freezing and four feet-per-second current - a photograph that pulled a team into a building emptied for thirty years. Inside a sub-floor once worked for twenty-one years, they found a man who had been living there for approximately fourteen months and a sound recorded in a building with no electricity; what produced that rhythmic ninety-second hum?

In this episode, we follow how a river-side photograph, an inspector’s marginal note, and a recorded hum led a small team to request access, enter an abandoned mill, and descend to a sub-floor where unexpected evidence and a longtime occupant raised new questions about the mill and the sound. How did a dry bobbin and a marginal inspector’s remark trigger an official entry that uncovered a hidden occupant and a baffling recording?

Person: Philip Keller Person: Gordon Thompson Person: Melissa Davis Event: Access approved for February 4, 2019 Person: Roy Ashburn

- Temperature at the river when the bobbin was found: 11 degrees (January 9, 2019) - River current speed where bobbin sat: four feet per second - Bobbin size and type: fourteen-inch wooden, double-flanged, dry - Years the Harmon Street mill had been closed: closed 1989, equipment stripped by 1991, electricity removed by 1993 - Time Roy Ashburn had been living in the sub-floor: approximately fourteen months

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