Below-zero temperatures and wedding proposals, skipping school and camping out, mob scenes and family reunions – these are just a few of our reader’s favorite memories of the annual Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt.
For the past 54 winters, our readers have decoded clues and scoured public lands in Ramsey County in search of a hidden medallion. As the search for the coveted coin begins once again, we asked readers to dig up their best Treasure Hunt tales.
We heard from those dedicated souls who hunt from dusk to dawn and dawn to dusk and then start all over again every year. We heard from more casual seekers who enjoy the hubbub as much as the hunt. We heard about near misses – lots of them – and from a few bona fide winners. We heard about the time the medallion was burned, about the time it was found in a diaper and about the time it was under a mailbox. And we heard some wonderfully bad poetry.
I’ve had two chances at finding the medallion.
The first time was in 1955. I wasn’t an avid medallion hunter, but I would occasionally read the clues printed in the newspaper. I worked in downtown St. Paul, and my husband, the late Arthur Cooley, picked me up from work one day. When we passed Seventh and Robert streets, I told my husband to stop and look underneath a mailbox, but he told me it couldn’t be there. Guess where the medallion was found?
The second time was in 1958, when we were driving to St. Paul from Forest Lake on U.S. 61 and were going around Lake Phalen. We crossed a little bridge, and I had a feeling the medallion was under there. Once again, I told my husband to stop and look. He said no way, and we continued to drive. Guess where the medallion was found?
– Agnes Cooley of Forest Lake
Should’ve, would’ve, but couldn’t
One evening in January of 1968, I was talking to my friend from an upstairs telephone while my mom was doing laundry two stories away in the basement. That night, my friend and I conspired to skip school the next day with two other friends so we could find the treasure.
The next morning, my mother told me I couldn’t skip school.
“What makes you think I’d do that?” I asked.
“Because I heard your conversation with Mark,” she replied. “I heard it loud and clear down the clothes chute.”
I quickly realized the upstairs phone was right next to the clothes chute leading to the basement.
That evening, I was delivering papers, and to my sheer and utter dismay, the headline read: “Three play hooky to find treasure.”
It really should have read: “Four play hooky to find treasure.”
– Gary Olson, a former St. Paul Pioneer Press paperboy, of St. Paul
We have a winner!
I’ve had many great moments, but the best was when I found the medallion.
It was a Wednesday morning on Feb. 2, 1977. I was a junior at Macalester College in St. Paul and, between classes one day, I drove to Irvine Park in St. Paul to look for the treasure. I was there for maybe 15 minutes when I walked to a spot near a grove of trees and noticed a small piece of litter poking up through the surface of the snow. It was a cigar box and felt heavy, so I looked inside.
It was the medallion – at the time a bronze coin wrapped in a plastic cover and taped to the inside of the box. I was shaking as I walked back to my car, trying to look inconspicuous.
I went to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where the public-relations director drilled me with questions: “Where did you find it?” “What did you find it in?” They took my picture for the paper and announced my name on the radio.
And I remember coming home that day to the phone ringing off the hook.
– Bill Gough of Edina Mob scene
The dramatic conclusion of the 2003 hunt will always be a great memory. That last night, everybody was standing at the corner of Como Park in St. Paul, ready to charge in any direction. Suddenly, cell phones started ringing.
My sister was at the Pioneer Press waiting for the paper to come out and to get the next clue while others were waiting at home waiting for the clue to pop up on the Internet. I remember my sister calling me, but I couldn’t hear the clue because the crowd was so loud – people were talking on their phones and screaming every which way to their teammates.
At one point, a fellow medallion hunter burst from the pack toward the woods. Then, another hunter headed toward the woods. And then another. With the big crowd, I ran across the park as fast as I could in that direction. I was literally laughing because it was so fun and exhilarating as this huge mass of people ran in the same direction.
I didn’t find the medallion, but I’ll always remember that moment.
– Scott Moe of Inver Grove Heights
Happy hunting
When we first started dating in 2005, we decided to do our first treasure hunt together.
A year later, while hunting for the medallion on a moonlit night, we were digging at Crosby Park. Jen would pick a spot, then I would pick another spot – always trying to get us to dig closer to the river’s embankment. We finally made it to an oak tree, and Jen found a metal box. When she opened it, there was a ring inside.
I knelt down and proposed as the sunset was shining off the snow. I had planned the whole thing with my brothers, who planted the box under the oak tree for me.
Jen really believed she had found the medallion at first, and all she could think was, “We didn’t register our button.” We’re now happily married.
– Ryan and Jen Dick of Woodbury
No fear
During the hunt of 2004, I was out at Phalen Park in St. Paul every day looking for the medallion. I remember talking on the phone to my sister, Julie, in Texas about how much I wished she were here digging with me. But she was afraid to fly and hadn’t flown for seven years.
Eventually, my daughter, Brooke, joined me in the hunt. One day, she drove up to the Holiday station on West Seventh Street in St. Paul, where we were supposed to meet before heading to the park to hunt. She said she couldn’t make it because she had to work. I was upset as Brooke apologized profusely.
But on a brighter note, Brooke said she brought someone else to go hunting with me. I looked in her car, and it was Julie! We had so much fun that Julie now comes up for the treasure hunt every year.
I’ll never forget that year when Julie faced her fear of flying and gave me the best and most unexpected surprise ever.
– Becki Pope of South St. Paul
Know your city
I remember how my mom used to talk about all those “crazy treasure hunters” when I was a kid. Still, she thought a treasure hunt was a good way to learn about the city.
But it wasn’t until 1990, when I had my own kids, I went treasure hunting with my daughters. At the time, Claire was 7, and Kathryn was 3 years old. They’ve been hooked ever since. Now 24 and 20 years old, they still search for the medallion every year.
It takes a lot of time and energy. Every day during the hunt, they go to the Pioneer Press building to get the early edition of the paper so they can be among the first to get the clues. They check the Internet and St. Paul guidebooks for research. They even have special hats with flashlights for night hunting.
My mom was right about the treasure hunt. At this point, my daughters know the city almost as well as any cabbie.
– Beth and Bob Schafer of Arden Hills Lighting up the town
My most memorable year was in 1993, when the medallion was at Hidden Falls Park in St. Paul. The night of the last clue, my friend Mark and I went downtown to the St. Paul Pioneer Press building to get the paper. I remember racing with 500 other cars west across town to Hidden Falls. The park was wild with Coleman lanterns and flashlights everywhere. It looked like a bunch of fireflies or Christmas lights strung across the park. The scene of so many lights in a central mass was surreal, and those images forever burn in my mind.
– Gregory Logajan of Arden Hills
All fired up
Some St. Thomas College buddies of mine and I were searching in Highland Park in St. Paul on the first Friday night of the 1961 hunt. Some other hunters, also St. Thomas College students, started a small fire to warm up. We joined for part of the evening, and eventually everyone left.
The next morning, it was announced that some lucky treasure hunter found the medallion two feet from where we had been standing near the fire. The fire we started had apparently melted the snow the medallion was hidden underneath.
– Bert McKasy of Inver Grove Heights
So close
My mom always let me take one or two “sick days” from school for the medallion hunt. In 1993, when I was in high school, we took time off to hunt.
Almost immediately, we knew it was at Hidden Falls Park in St. Paul. The first clue had to do with “circles in the air,” and there was a power line that went across the river and had circles around it. We searched the park every day – near trees, on hills, in the middle of nowhere. One night, we got tired and felt goofy, so we made snow angels on the ground.
The next night, someone found the medallion in a diaper right where we were making our snow angels!
– Scott Moe of Inver Grove Heights
… and yet so far away
My cousin Rachel and I have hunted for the medallion together ever since we were little. Ten years ago, when we were 7, we brought plastic shovels and a rake to hunt with at Como Park. Being kids, we got bored after an hour of searching. So, we started our own treasure-hunt game, which entailed taking turns burying the little green rake in the snow and having the other person dig it up.
At one point, we lost the rake, and our dads had to stop medallion hunting to help us find it. By the time we located the rake, we were all so tired we called it a day.
We found out later, if we had bothered to look more closely at the snow we had just been digging in, we would have found the Band-Aid box containing the medallion. We were literally right on top of it, and we didn’t spot it!
– Brianna Ricci of Stillwater
Nancy Ngo can be reached at nngo@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5172. The hunt begins: The 55th annual Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt begins today. Look for clues and rules in the final edition of today’s Local section or online at twincities.com.
Copyright 2007 Pioneer Press.
