Forrest-
too bad none of the images contain a Lion AND a Scarecrow

Ha!
Image 3 has a tin man, though…
(there’s no place like home, there’s…)

how about camels and rhiinos?
wilhouse

the old guy interpretation… pass two friends of octave in december…december has 8 letters, so, pass any 2, pass the first 2, pass 2 connecting letters, etc. ride the man of oz…attach these 2 letters from above to either tin(the man of oz), or wizard(the other man in oz) (example… de  ce  mber… added to tin = tince or cetin ). Hey, thats how i read the thing! Just havin’ fun!!!

Ok, I might have a little suprise for everyone that comes on Sunday, a new unique twist on the old solution taking us back to the Vandeventer gate area.  This is a very very specific X marks the spot kind of thing.  After Sunday, I will post what I am talking about, and either a picture of an empty hole, or a picture of ?  Seriously, this would be something I might do to hide the treasure, and the solution is cool.

Go get em!

Indeed – good luck! I am actually in St. Louis now (typing from my hotel room). But I won’t have a chance to go to Forest Park tomorrow, or anytime soon. Grrr.

best of luck with your diggin’!!

Good Luck Spinner.  You should see if Johann wants to join in on the fun.  Would mean a lot less digging on your part

The following are posted for Carol. I will let her explain what they mean…

FB,
Thank you  ! Well everyone this is what hit me when I visited the Park on  Monday. I was actually hoping to see some police tape from  Spinner & Johann’s outing on Sunday . The first pic is when it hit me how maybe he could’ve rolled all these different areas of the park into one neat little area . The second is corner near the Jewel box and the golf course . The 3rd is the strret sign on that same corner which made me think of …namsakes meeting near this site , because the street names in those days were named after prominent people in the area . The 4th is what I saw when I looked through the bushes on the same corner . I don’t know if it is the 7th hole or not , but it is all in the same area . I did not get a picture of the sign I mentioned before , but can if anyone wants or thinks this may be a possibility. Carol

gManTexas

Hopefully I can clear up the immigration question and the map being discussed in the last few posts.
If we look at the sections of the book called The Passage to the New World and The Vanishing, the various groups that came to the New World are listed. It mentions that there are 13 Tribes. It goes on to mention that the Irish and Scottish are in fact one Tribe. If we take the map and look at the numbers in the key, this is how it plays out:
1. Scandinavians – they did not settle anywhere. They are the casque makers.
2. Russians – NYC
3. Germans – Milwaukee
4. and 5. Scottish and Irish – Chicago
6. English – Roanoke
7. Dutch – Montreal
8. French – New Orleans
9. Greeks – Cleveland
10. Spanish – St. Augustine
11. Italians – Boston
12. Arabs – Houston
13. Africans – Charleston
This is the 12 that came West.
The 13th Tribe came from Asia and presumably traveled East to the shores of California. – San Francisco
This is why it is not shown on the map, because Asia and North America are not shown.

Missed you, GMan! Great observation.
Bingo – my visual abilities are a blessing and a curse. I love that I can see EXACT people but few others can.
Thanks for the reply.

Hopefully I can clear up the immigration question and the map being discussed in the last few posts.
If we look at the sections of the book called The Passage to the New World and The Vanishing, the various groups that came to the New World are listed. It mentions that there are 13 Tribes. It goes on to mention that the Irish and Scottish are in fact one Tribe. If we take the map and look at the numbers in the key, this is how it plays out:
1. Scandinavians – they did not settle anywhere. They are the casque makers.
2. Russians – NYC
3. Germans – Milwaukee
4. and 5. Scottish and Irish – Chicago
6. English – Roanoke
7. Dutch – Montreal
8. French – New Orleans
9. Greeks – Cleveland
10. Spanish – St. Augustine
11. Italians – Boston
12. Arabs – Houston
13. Africans – Charleston
This is the 12 that came West.
The 13th Tribe came from Asia and presumably traveled East to the shores of California. – San Francisco
This is why it is not shown on the map, because Asia and North America are not shown.

That’s makes sense. I didn’t pick up on the division between Scotland and England. Then the subsequent pairing of Ireland and Scotland.
I guess that cleans up the numbers.

Can’t wait to have another new set of eyes working on this thing.  Bring her on

Ok, so I opened my big fat mouth and thought I had it.  I should have known better than to say anything before I tried, so to pay my pennance, here is my solution so far, maybe one of you has a missing element to isolate the 1’x1′ patch of earth in a 100 square yard area.  All I ask if you find it is to give me some props so I can get on the TV show ‘Treasure Hunters’ in the fall
Verse 2 and Image 9 refer to St. Louis, my interpretation will be given in the following posts.
At the place where jewels abound
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Only three stand watch
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.

The Arch
My original notion that this is the Checkerdome, also known as The Arena, which used to be right accross the highway from the specific site to the south.
Representation of the Jewel Box, main feature near this site.
Map of St. Louis Riverfront
River Confluence at St. Louis
My original notion that this represents the ‘Golf Grip’.  AAA golf course runs past the Jewel Box
The ‘Dog Leg’, also a golf reference, The blob to the lower right is still up in the air, possibly a map of the garden at the Jewel Box.
The flag and 7 represent the 7th hole of the golf course, the closest part of the golf course to this specific site (accross the street).
I have been playing with the Idea that the author made a historical mistake with the X.  Saint Louis (the person) was Louis the IX, not the X.
I would hate to think he would make a mistake of this magnitude, what else do you think it means?
My original thought is that this is a representation of the St. Louis Blues hockey team.  Go Blues! (they are stinky right now, but we love em)
The half smile half frown is the clasical comedy and tradgedy which is about the theater.  The Muny is about a 3 iron from the site.
My favorite tid-bit is that the crows feet wrinkles are in the Shape of the Vandeventor Gate.  He is telling us to see through the gate.
I would not doubt that there were more to it than what I have used, but this drops us dead on the Jewel Box area at Forest Park in St. Louis Missouri.
So, lets move on to the verse to get closer…

Lets Pick it apart shall we?
At the place where jewels abound
Or, where the jewels are bound, like in a package, like a box, Jewel Box
Fifteen rows down to the ground
There used to be a rose clock in the garden at the Jewel Box.  Fifteen rows = Fifteen Rose = 15 minutes or 1500 hrs = 3 O’clock position
The clock is gone now, and has been replaced by a sun dial Vietnam Memorial, dedicated in 1989, years after the treasure was burried.
The center of the Brickwork at the Memorial was the center of the Clock, and Noon was due north.  Looking in the Direction of 3 O’clock,
You get to the next piece of the verse, less than 30 yards away.
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Looking from the Rose Clock, this takes you to our Vandeventer Gate.  This credit had gone to someone else long ago as being a possibilty.
An intrepretation that I put on it is that U is the 21st letter of the alphabet, and the middle from end to end would be like drawing a line
accross the top of the U and splitting it in the middle.  This lands you pretty close to a Lamp Post from the worlds fair.  Dig at the precise
location between the ends of the U if you want, but I have been there and done that, nothing so far.
Only three stand watch
The lamp post refered to earlier has 3 lions heads on it, with a position that used to hold the fourth.  Therefore, if you expect 4 to stand watch,
now, there are “only” 3.  Dig North, Dig South, Dig East, Dig West, Dig Underneath, I have not found it there, can you?
As the sound of friends
Fills the afternoon hours
Ball fields, the park, the golf course, is there something more specific here than that?
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
The worlds fair was in this locaiton, and on of the big deals was electric lighting used to have the fair at night.
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
The namesakes meeting
Near this site.
I like the recent post that lists the Gnomes and Fays as “Fair Folk”, this would mean fair goers would meet near this site,
I would say the east entrance gate would be a fine place to meet, kind of like our Stan Musial Statue at Busch Staduim.

The Jewel Box
Pattern in Garden that matches part of the ‘blob’
Position of Rose Clock, Now gone.
Plaque at Rose Clock showing date of new memorial, 1989.
3 O’Clock View from Center of Rose Clock.
The lamp post in the middle of 21, from end to end.
Only Three Stand Watch.
Please, Help us out by posting a picture of the hole you dig, and the 25 year old Casque Seeing Daylight!
P.S. Don’t get busted by Five-O, the PO-PO, or whatever you young people are calling them now.

My main problem with St Louis/Forest Park with this verse/image
is that the verse does not present a journey or path as the other verses
do.  (Houston/Milwaukee/Roanoke all describe movement from landmark to
landmark until you reach the proper spot and orientation)
This verse literally has three lines that point you to the dig area.
Everything else describes the ‘surroundings’
I firmly believe that the key to this site is name recognition.
(Confirmed with the last two lines of the verse)
The site name is likely more recognizable than the city it is in.
(Disneyland, Carnegie Hall, Bunker Hill, Augusta National)
I do not see Forest Park satisfying this criteria.  Also, a bit of a nitpick,
BP does not use the location name(s) anywhere within the clue(s).
Therefore, ‘Where jewels abound’ should not lead to ‘Jewel Box’
if this is consistent with his other solves.
I want this solved and found like the next guy, and I think I have a personal
interest in this particular one.
There’s not a lot of wasted clues here.  (especially not the ‘blob’)
That is a black jockey riding a horse. (turn the image a quarter)
(Dogs do not have hoofs.)

Wow, spinner, you’ve done an incredible job scouting the place out! Here are my thoughts.
First, I think the X is merely the symbol for the 10th hour/month (this is the “October” picture) – nothing more, nothing less.
The golf connection is brilliant. I didn’t know dogleg was a golfing reference – nice find. Looking it up online, it is a fairway that bends from the tee box en route to the hole. There is one fairway in the Triple-A that doglegs, but it isn’t hole 7.
Some questions for you:
The checkerdome is also a good find, but I don’t see the St. Louis riverfront in the outline of his hat. Can you provide an image that illustrates what you’re saying? (actually, all of your images just disappeared – will they be back?)
Part of the garden paths do look like part of the blob, but what about the rest of the blob?
“Vandeventer” would provide the Dutch connection for this picture. My thinking on the
In the middle of twenty-one / From end to end / Only three stand watch
part of the verse is that these lines belong together, but do not indicate the spot to dig. It is simply a confirmer that you are in the correct general area, and have correctly followed the path from the jewel box -> rose clock -> Vandeventer Gate. Something else in the verse probably precisely locates where X marks the spot.
What are the namesakes? I doubt they refere to the gnomes and fays mentioned just previously.

Is this a fair representation of the area?
It is difficult to see on Google Earth, but are there any other sites of interest east of the Vandeventer Gate but still within the area bounded by Macklind and Wells?

a couple thoughts –
hard to agree on it being a dog leg, since it’s not a dog’s leg.
think more work needs to be done on the 15 rows.  I like the idea of it being the Rose clock, but the milwaukee verse is to specific about steps, I have to believe there was actually some rows of some sort.  need some old photos to work that out.
wilhouse

Let us not split this part of the clue up:
“Fifteen rows down to the ground”
This is one of the few clues that direct us to the
specific spot.  The second half is vital here.
Down to the ground indicates you PASS the
‘fifteen rows’ to get to someplace. (the place)
This is a directional clue.
This is just after “at the place where…”
So if you start AT the ‘jewel box’
and pass the rose clock, you are
technically no longer at the place where jewels abound.

I do not see a proper golf grip….
http://golf.about.com/od/golftips/ss/go … rail_5.htm
I see the fingers interlocked:
This Is The Church
A fingerplay with interlocking fingers
This is the church,
(children hold hands down with fingers interlocked)
This is the steeple.
(Now put up both index fingers in the shape of a steeple)
Look inside.
(children turn hands over)
And see all the people.
(everybody wiggle fingers)

Thank you for posting that pic forest_blight, I had intended to create one myself, its perfect.  I totally agree that there needs to be a final piece solved to put the X marks the spot in terms of so many paces from such and such, cause that what the other puzzles seem to do.  Thats why I still think it is in the area of the lamp post as 3 stand watch, but not necessarily right on top of it.
Sorry about the pics coming and going, I have them loaded on yahoo, and they limit the usage per hour of downloads.  Does anyone have a better suggestion about where I should put them?
Modified per forest_blights level head.

Sign up for free at flickr.com – you can host up to 200 pictures, and it is tied to your same Yahoo account.  Here are some I posted (note it lets you highlight areas of the pic and add notes).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/madrigar/s … 183032268/

For those who can not be there…
http://www.mohistory.org/content/Travel … dsculp.pdf
http://www.muny.org/index.html
Enyoy.

FB

Tonight I will look in the book for what happened to the iron gates themselves. I think I remember reading that the Vandeventer Place Gates were initially moved because Vandeventer Place was chosen as the site for a VA hospital. It would not be unheard of for the iron parts of the gate to have been moved back to their original home.

Just following up on an earlier post…
Here is the complete entry on the Gates:
Vandeventer Place Gates
Installed as a backdrop for the Jewel Box rose garden in 1950-51.
Granite with wrought iron gates. “Vandeventer Place” carved in top of each side. By 1985, center carriage gate was missing; only side pedestrian gates remained.
The Federal Government donated the gates to the city after it took a portion of Vandeventer Place for a veterans’ hospital, later Cochran Hospital. Vandeventer Place, a private place located several miles northeast of the park, had been a fashionable address in the late 1880s before the exodus to new locations like the private places north of Forest Park.
If anyone is curious about any other location with Forest Park, I will be happy to look up the details and post them. But I can’t keep the book checked out forever.

omg! this is really a great find. Almost as good as the(is it wilhouses) zoo find. forest park is alittle away from me too Spinner.
i’ve been looking into image 9 as St. Louis also because of the checker dome. But my mom pointed that out to me. she grew up 1/2 a mile from there and saw it every day. verse 7 is what i’ve been trying to connect this with tho. With Mark Twain, education and justice for all to see, the stone wall…it reminds me so much of the downtown riverfront closer to the arch. even down to the air smelling sweet! ohh i love walking aimlessly down there! the “dog leg” looks more to me like a combo of horse racing and or dog racing. that be across the bridge.
let me know if you give the spot near the Jewel Box up for grabs. Please let me explaimn.. don’t take that as sounding rude or mean. I just feel that with all the work you two have put into this its your rightful area and i could never just take it from you without your say. But if you said its up for grabs…then i could get my hands dirtty and dig.

Its totally up for grabs.  The reward will come in the solution, not the physical prize, and that is something we will all be able to share.  So very polite of you to ask, kind of like sitting down in the middle of a shoe of black jack and jumping right in vs. asking or waiting for the next shuffle, classy move.
Go for it, if you think you can do it without turning the area into the moons crater.  I have never actually asked for permission, so when I do dig, I tend to rubber neck a lot.  Be carefull is all that I am asking, not only for your personal interests, but also, to not ruin it for anyone else by setting a precident of ‘thou shalt not dig for treasure in forest park’ by some authority.
Good Luck!

spinner

kind of like sitting down in the middle of a shoe of black jack and jumping right in vs. asking or waiting for the next shuffle, classy move.

lol you and my hubby would get along great.

I recommend that you band together and seek some kind of official sanction from the administrators of Forest Park. It would be a very good idea to cultivate a relationship with a park official so (a) you don’t get arrested and (b) if at first you don’t succeed, you can try, try again.

If this is in fact the St Louis connection,
doesn’t this make the site comprsomised??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerdome
This does meet my ‘sporting’ criteria
AND it meets the ‘dogleg’ criteria.
I don’t think it meets the longetity
criteria but the time period is satisfied.
And from what I understand, it is next to
Forest Park. (make that WAS).

http://www.builtstlouis.net/vanish03a.html
New meaning to “down to the ground”

Interesting….
http://stlouis.missouri.org/landmarks/arena.html
double spires.

It was a big deal here when the Checkerdome/Arena went down.  I wonder if the checkers in the pic also refer to Purina.
We should probably figure out the exact spot (as much as we can) before digging.  A park official would probably want to know exactly where we want to dig.  I cannot imagine that he/she would be willing to let someone dig around and around and around.

The following is my email to the Geological Department at the University of Missouri at Rolla, it does not hurt to ask.
Greetings,
UMR alumni here, 1994 and 1998.  I am involved in a 25 year old treasure hunt, yes, you heard me clearly.  This was a book called ‘The Secret’ and had clues and what not to burried ceramic ‘casques’.  A group of us feel like we have narrowed down the field of possibilty to approximatly a few hundred square yards in Forest Park, in St. Louis, as a primary solution.
My question is, does your department, or any other at UMR that you are aware of, have a Ground Penetrating Radar unit and an operator that may help us in this endeavor?  It is understood that there is some expense of resources and man power here, and that there are probably more earth shattering things to do with those resources, however, we are having a lot of fun with this, and would certainly generate a little publicity if we are successful, to which, we would give UMR the proper credit.  A couple of hours with someone with a trained eye for the results would be enough to find it if its there.
Please forward this appropriately if it has landed in the wrong hands.
Thank you for your consideration.

Here is a little bit about the dome….& its architecture, who, himself was an emigrant.
He also helped in the planning of the domes in both Houston & New Orleans….2 popular cities around here.
http://stlouis.missouri.org/landmarks/arena.html
oops….had to modify this post since it is the exact same site posted by Trohn above.

Fox-
Is that smitable?
Tron.

anash27

Do you think there’s a resemblence to the shape next to the leg? The dome shapes on top could be indicating the water.
Ive been known to be wrong in the past & I am sure I will probably be wrong again in the future but personally…..I think that is our match.  The dome sections I believe are water cascading out of the fountain.  The nonsymmetrical blocks seem to fit quite nicely.  I am willing to bet that if you were to go to the fountain as it was running, you could walk around the fountain until you get the exact match.
So….as of now… I am sold.
(Thanks to Spinner for this pic)

That’s the idea, anash – see the July 13 posts in this thread.

Spinner!! That is awesome!! That has got to be it!
I feel totally relieved, casque or no casque, to know what that stupid blob is!!!
If you guys are actually on the site,
Have you asked about the ?Dog? Head and the hoof?
Someone really familiar with the park may recognize them?

Spinner & johann ,
I did go to Forest park on a fay and Gnome hunt .  I was at the Jewel box . No digging here and I only talked to the man inside . There are some fairies or angel like creatures on the white urns outside the Jewel box. I asked him how old they were . He said they were from the original jewel box and dated around 1936. This is the second jewel box.  I was down on Monday afternoon. Kinda dissapointed . I was hoping to find some there . I did see fairies on the outside of the muny , but that is all . He directed me to the art museum , but it was closed . I figured all these old parks put fairies and gothic creatures everywhere on the wrought iron work and sculptures . ZIPPO.

CMSCHMUT– Good footwork!  Perhaps there are little fays creeping around there.  I hope one of them has a shovel to lend a hand.
Spinner– Perhaps we can get together whenever it is convenient for you, even if you need some time.  I hope all goes well for you.

spinner

Ok, Maybe Forest Blight Really has something there…
More than a passing resemblance to Mr. Blobby Pants

Do you think there’s a resemblence to the shape next to the leg? The dome shapes on top could be indicating the water.
(Thanks to Spinner for this pic)

Shecrab –> You twelever you…
Anyone care to dig now that the weather has turned?  Soggy ground is easier than summer hard pan…

STL local and new to the Secret. Trying to take in all in. No real interest in securing the cask for myself, but I do like adventures and puzzles. And I’d like to do some part in resolving this grand mystery. Something about image 9 always seemed to scream out to me, and something about Montreal’s location (compared to others) seemed off.
Not particularly convinced that 9 is STL, and especially not convinced by chasing shadows in the wallpaper, but willing to give it an honest try. My compulsion to search for clues in the book is a little too strong to resist. Need something less circumstantial: like figuring out the runes, or the hat. The note for the STL Blues could be a fit. Got to be a coast line to match the hat — even if it’s NIMBY. Happy to offer help / get together with other locals with ideas. (PM or reply w interest).
Anyone ever thought about running the curves through AI? (Generally, on any image). I don’t think I have all the skills, but I expect it’s not that hard to train AI to crawl Google Earth to match coastlines.

James Baldwin – The Horse Fair
Page 304 – Wind-swept halls
At first, I thought the reference was too obscure but the book is full of fantasy creatures and references to “fair people” and “fair ladies”. I don’t think its a coincidence.
On page 304 is the character Sigurd.
Sigurd’s patronymic is an unusual one and there would appear to be a connection with this name and the early roots of the modern French name “Louis”.
The horse fair
by Baldwin, James, 1841-1925
Publication date 1909, c1895
Topics Horses, Horses
Publisher New York : Century
Collection newyorkpubliclibrary; americana
Digitizing sponsor MSN
Contributor New York Public Library
Language English
Young Philip, resting after his plowing, is surprised my a mysterious gentleman who invites him to a wondrous
and magical horse fair at which he sees great horses from literature and history
https://archive.org/details/horsefair00bald/page/n315

Being a newbie, I know my theory isn’t going to hold much water but based on my research, I’m confident there’s one in St. Louis.
I’ve made several attempts to request permission to dig from the Parks department but the impression I’m getting is they’re not going to entertain any requests.
Has anyone made any headway with the Parks Department in St. Louis?

rexx

Being a newbie, I know my theory isn’t going to hold much water but based on my research, I’m confident there’s one in St. Louis.
I’ve made several attempts to request permission to dig from the Parks department but the impression I’m getting is they’re not going to entertain any requests.
Has anyone made any headway with the Parks Department in St. Louis?

did you saw any maps of St. Louis or the state of Missouri in the image?
or coordinates of St. Louis ?
I just want to know what makes you so confident there is one in St. Louis.

Spiritr

did you saw any maps of St. Louis or the state of Missouri in the image?
or coordinates of St. Louis ?
I just want to know what makes you so confident there is one in St. Louis.

Other than the obvious; St. Louis Blues emblem, The Checker Dome, The Jewel Box… there’s a number of smaller clues.
If I can’t get permission to dig, I’ll share my entire solution but I’m still holding out for the opportunity to search myself.

I skimmed this thread ever so briefly. Is the basis of this theory solely on Verse 5? We all realize that you have to match an image to a verse and then solve the puzzle, which leaves the issues of coordinates and features in the Image that seem to match Montreal.
What gives?

rexx

Other than the obvious; St. Louis Blues emblem, The Checker Dome, The Jewel Box… there’s a number of smaller clues.
If I can’t get permission to dig, I’ll share my entire solution but I’m still holding out for the opportunity to search myself.

No, I’m not asking about irrelevant clues
I am asking the visual of the actual location, maps, shapes, outlines and coordinates.

Please be patient with me. I will share all my details likely in a few days.
But before that, I’m still hoping to find someone with connections with the Parks Dept.

Doing a lot of thinking about the “aces” part of the verse.
The Aviation Field #1 is in the Forest Park. “… served as a landing field for airmail service between St. Louis and Chicago.”

As they say, “No news is good news.”

Hopefully they are busy handling all of the media attention.
Maybe we should send bail money.

So…. What happened?

Maybe they fell down the rabbit hole!  My guess, they are exhausted and need a rest. (or hungover)

Kind of a dissapointment.  My suspision was to use the Lamp Post at the Vandeventer Gate as a Sundial, where the position of the tip of the shadow would show where to dig.  The problem is that it seemed very centered in the gate, almost to the center of it from end to end, where I and others had dug previously.  There is some deviaiton based on the time of year that it was burried, not only north and south but also taking daylight savings time into account.  I did take a picture of the fountain as it was running water, and the liines don’t line up exactly right for what we saw in the blob.  I also took some pictures of the Satyrs around the muny.  Doubtfull these are fairies as posted previously, as they have hoof feet.  I think I have seen a hoof before somewhere…

Good thinking…Thanks for the hard work.  If it’s there (and it is), you guys will dig it up.
Food for thought Spinner, only three stand
watch
as the sound of friends
fills the
afternoon hours
Does P.M. (meaning afternoon hours) say anything to you?  Having not been there, was hoping it may mean something to ye all.
edit: only (a single) 3-stand watch?

I am back again. I finally heard from the Missouri Historical Library and they knew nothing. I E-mailed the friends of forest park a while back but have not heard anything. I will be faxing this infromation to some higher ups in the organization in the next few days.
I think this image is definately STl. I also think verse 6 goes with image because when you turn the image upside down the checkard area in the chest is above the jewel in the hat. It looks like between two arms extended beneeth the bar that binds. THe hands could also be the long palm shadow. This verse in light of everything else looks like it goes to the muny/pagoda circle area of forest park. It does however concern  me that in the image I see nothing that realisticly ID’s any park in the STL area. The legeater must be the park ID. I will let you know as soon as I know more.

Watched the sun set last night, over the site in STL.  No shovel, no paperwork, just watching and listening.  That blob is more important than we give it credit for.  Is there something to the namesakes meeting beyond a simple little anagram?  What may have been on this site that was moved or removed since 1980 that we just have not discovered yet.
Its time to go find a little old lady, with a solid memory, who loved to take pictures.  Grandma Ruth, here i come.

I suppose these would be the people to contact about little old ladies with cameras:
http://www.forestparkforever.org/HTML/

If the hat is the checkerdome,
where is the pattern for the neck
and the two cuffs??
“who build palaces to shelter
their heads for a night!”
are the palaces from the world’s fair still there?
BP wouldn’t reference, four lines worth,
something that is no longer standing…

Trohn – We’re not saying the hat IS the Checkerdome. We are saying the checker pattern (on the hat, cuffs, and collar) may
represent
the Checkerdome.
We are in no position to say with certainty what BP would or wouldn’t have done 25 years ago. And the fact that the Palaces are no longer there doesn’t mean he wouldn’t have written them into his riddle. They were very significant in their day. The fact that they no longer stand just makes the riddle that much more difficult to solve without hitting the history books (or in our case, Wikipedia).

Its fun to see everyone go all ‘Davinci Code’ up in here.  Keep those thoughts rolling along!

“Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!”
Here is an example of other places that might be better for SOVEREIGN PEOPLE.
sov·er·eign One that exercises supreme, permanent authority, especially in a nation or other governmental unit, as:
A king, queen, or other noble person who serves as chief of state; a ruler or monarch.
A national governing council or committee.
A nation that governs territory outside its borders.
A gold coin formerly used in Great Britain.
—The only one of eight buildings that were ment to last. (the other 7 were made from plaster of paris)
The Palace of Liberal Arts = Art museum
—the World’s Fair Pavilion. Built on the site of the Fair’s original Missouri Building (which was lost to a massive fire in 1904) the Pavilion was designed to be a lasting memorial to the Fair.this site is located on Government Hill.
— the log cabin home hand-built by 18th U.S. President and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant was a exhibit at the 1904 World’s Fair
—The Administration Building (now Brookings Hall) was the official reception hall used to meet dignitaries and other Fair-going VIPs and also served as an exhibit of a model university. The athletic field and gymnasium, still in use today by the university, were the site of the 1904 Olympic Games, the first Olympiad held in the United States.
I really like the Vandeverter Gate but does sovereign people really fit here? I understand that they were “rich class” people & after reading about them, they may have “thought” themselves of noble blood…Would someone please should me the connection between the gate & “Sovereign”

Oops. I was re-reading the Image 9 thread this morning and found that johann mentioned that the World’s Fair had temporary ‘Palaces’ ages ago.
And thanks to fox and his latitude/longitude theory, I kept trying to make the symbols in the ‘X’ box and the flower into numbers, but as it turns out that, in all probability, neither are numbers. Spinner notes that the ‘X’ box is really a flag and a ‘7’ for the 7th hole in a golf course, and that the flower symbol is meant to represent the St. Louis Blues. In support of that, stercox sent me this picture today, which shows the resemblance, leaving little doubt:
The logo is the one used by the St. Louis Blues hockey team from 1967-1984.
Spinner, you’re full of good ideas. Why can’t you also turn your attention to the other casques in need of solves? We need your brain!
Stercox also mentioned that the thing everyone has been calling a ‘dogleg’ might simply be a dog and a horse to indicate Ralston Purina (so much for my rebus idea!). Purina is the company that (a) got its start making horse feed, (b) ended up being famous for dog food, and (c) bought (and named) the Checkerdome in 1977. So, it seems P9 has three visual cues for the Checkerdome. There’s the checkers (obviously), the Blues logo, and the dog/horseleg thingy. I
don’t
think the Checkerdome is the site we seek, however. It’s a terrible spot for BP to have buried a treasure, especially when he was so close to a nice, big park that isn’t likely to get demolished anytime soon. The place clues we’ve managed to identify in this neighborhood – even the tentative ones – are:
St. Louis in general
:
Arch over the eye = Gateway Arch
Inverted courthouse in collar (?) = St. Louis Courthouse
River outline in hat (?) = Mississippi
Forest Park
:
blob = Muny fountain
‘X’ box symbol = 7th hole flag
‘jewels abound’ = Jewel Box
‘three stand watch’ = Lion Lamp
‘middle of twenty-one’ = Vandeventer Place Gates
‘palaces’ = 1904 World’s Fair Palaces
Checkerdome
:
‘dogleg’ = Purina horse feed / dogfood empire
checker pattern = Purina symbol
flower symbol = St. Louis Blues
I think the Checkerdome clues were included merely to confirm that Forest Park is correct, as the Checkerdome would have been clearly visible from the part of the park near the Jewel Box. So of the 12 clues mentioned above, the first 3 are to identify St. Louis and the next 9 to indicate a particular part of Forest Park. The following has yellow dots near points that may be clued by P9/V2. I also put a dot next to the floral clock since it might be significant.
To reply to ALT, there may be no direct connection between the Gates and
sovereign people
. It could simply be part of the clue to the World’s Fair Palaces, which in turn is merely a confirmer that Forest Park is correct.
It’s just got to be near the Vandeventer Gates. The dots are clustered there, and it’s a Dutch name.

go to
www.stlzoo.org 
under other places to vist theres a park map thats better then the air shoots.

http://www.forestparkforever.org/HTML/files/fpf_map.pdf
sorry about that…i had to look it up.

I think all of these finds over the weekend pretty much shores up the fact that we have the correct PV pairing for St. Louis.
Not sure if it is relevant but is there anything in the P or V that points to Art or the Art Palace of the World’s Fair?
Here is a brief description:
http://washingtonmo.com/1904/p5.htm
This stood out to me:  “and in the east side is the work of the artists who have been influenced by German, English and training.”
could this be giving us the direction of East?

I think it would be cool to plow through each puzzle, knock it out, and move on to the next one.  I have been eyeballing the Houston one, as my sister lives down there, and could do some leg work, and shovel work for us.
I think its ok for the symbology to go from macro to micro.  The clues need to draw us into the casque site, and not all of them would be right on top of each other.  The arch gets us to st. louis, the palaces, the checkerdome, the jewel box, all draw us to forest park.  And, hopefully down to the ground where the casque can be found.
Again, to re-iterate a point about ‘Palaces for a night!’, the emphasis on night with an exclamaition point means it should have a ‘wow’ factor.  At the 1904 worlds fair, one of the huge deals was that there was electric lighting on many of the buildings, which was kind of a new thing to behold, so unlike previous fairs, this one could be attended at night, wow!, how cool is that?

forest_blight

…I think the Checkerdome clues were included merely to confirm that Forest Park is correct, as the Checkerdome would have been clearly visible from the part of the park near the Jewel Box…

Just to put an exclamation point on the Checkerdome, it WAS part of the park until the building of the highway cut it off.

spinner

I have been eyeballing the Houston one, as my sister lives down there, and could do some leg work, and shovel work for us.?

are you volunteering to help dig?  I think the leg work is mostly done…but always open to suggestions.
wilhouse

how far down does one have to dig? knee high? is it differ with each one?

Dig 2 foot maximum.
Its anagram time! yea!!!
Gnomes admire
Fays delight
Fay, another word for fairy, however, how often is that word really used in language and literature, hardly ever.  The suposition is that he had to make his anagram fit by using this word.  Gnomes admire makes a killer anagram, but fays delight I am still not happy with.
Modern Images
Slightly Fade
or
Modern Images
Defys A Light
or
Modern Images
Aged Fly Sh!t
Can you find a better solve for the ‘Fays Delight’?

that would take you to artwork

forest_blight

The logo is the one used by the St. Louis Blues hockey team from 1967-1984.

I believe that there is a clue to be obtained from the bottom part of the flower — more than just the musical note (if that is indeed what it is).  Take a careful look at the outline of the flower.  Notice that there are 2 parts to the bottom of the flower which should not be “colored in” since they are not petals.  That has to be intentional, since the other spaces in the flower which are not petals are not filled in.  This means that those “filled in” spaces must hold a clue.  If you look at the flower upside-down, you will see that the black lines surrounding those spaces make the letters “YL” or “VL”.  Also, it could be that the bottom part of the flower is a coastline or some other outline of something.  Those 2 possibilities seem to be the only reason why the spaces are “filled in.”
BTW, I am not so sure that this is St. Louis, since the Latitude and Longitude are nowhere to be found (38, 90).  However, the NY numbers appear to be there in the hair — 73 (right side of head) and 39 (on forehead, although the 3 is not that clear).

Do I see a 45 at the bottom of the flower?  Perhaps I am just nuts.

spinner

At the place where jewels abound
Or, where the jewels are bound, like in a package, like a box, Jewel Box
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Looking from the Rose Clock, this takes you to our Vandeventer Gate.  This credit had gone to someone else long ago as being a possibilty.
An intrepretation that I put on it is that U is the 21st letter of the alphabet, and the middle from end to end would be like drawing a line
accross the top of the U and splitting it in the middle.  This lands you pretty close to a Lamp Post from the worlds fair.  Dig at the precise
location between the ends of the U if you want, but I have been there and done that, nothing so far.
Only three stand watch
The lamp post refered to earlier has 3 lions heads on it, with a position that used to hold the fourth.  Therefore, if you expect 4 to stand watch,
now, there are “only” 3.  Dig North, Dig South, Dig East, Dig West, Dig Underneath, I have not found it there, can you?

How many feet between the “three stand watch” post and the gates?  21 feet?  21 paces?  21 yards?  Looking back a ways in this thread, at a pic of the post and gates, looks like you can squeeze a distance of 21 somethingorothers in that space.  Ten steps,
one
step
, ten more steps to gate? 21 in all.   Maybe the ONE step….

According to Google Earth, these are the measurements, give or take a foot:
Oops, those are feet, not inches!

spinner

Kind of a dissapointment.  My suspision was to use the Lamp Post at the Vandeventer Gate as a Sundial, where the position of the tip of the shadow would show where to dig.

So if the lamppost was say 10′ tall and the longitude of St Louis is nearly 40degrees(ish)
depending on the time of year… Your location spot would wander in a figure 8 roughly 30 feet across.
How did you figure out the correct time of the year to fix the spot…

i still like the coastal [ie. waterway ]cities theory
no casque in st Louis, to far inland………..IMO
at least till one is found, that is not coastal
shall we not forget the legeater

s.l. is considered a port city though. doesn’t have to be a coastal city. still think our legeater resides in montreal.

Questions for Johann…
Looking back through the archives, I think it was you who said you sent BP a long letter about a ST Louis possible solution with (verse 7, I think) and then you said he said Verse 7 doesn’t go with St Louis.
You said BP did confirm there was a St Louis casque.
But later you said you began to doubt it… and you weren’t sure if there was a St Louis casque.
why would you doubt it if BP had unequivocally stated there was a St Louis casque…
What exactly did he say? do you still have his reply? Did he just say Verse 7 doesn’t go with St Louis?

……….so, you’re going to share this information???

Euhirudinea

The text of that email: “Very impressive work esp since the book is 20 years old. I think you deserve to know that you are correct about st. Louid,but not correct about the location.thanks for all your excellent work.” Without the full text of Johann’s original email to Preiss (which we don’t have), the response quoted above lacks the context necessary to draw any conclusions. Specifically, what “location” they are talking about. Fortunately, there are other ways to know that there can be no treasure in St. Louid, or St. Louis.

Thanks ren…that text is what I recall being posted, elsewhere.
(As in, I recalled that the response was inconclusive regarding whether he meant the citd (misspelling intended) and someplace in the city or if he meant some other location in some other city…..20 years after the book was published, knowing that he had a history of either disseminating misinformation or just getting it wrong, it’s difficult to know exactly what he was referring to.)

to Renovator:
Thank you so much for your response. The letter was what I was referring to. But I wonder specifically if Priess was saying yes there is a cask there. Probably that is what he meant, but i would like to know what the other party said about St. Louis so that we can know exactly what he is referring to. I will look into it, etc.

I found this old post from 2013 that says Preiss’s comment was about Image 10 Verse 7. I don’t know who “Johann” is but they have more info. If I find them, I will update this page.
Re: General Questions
johann suggested Image10/Verse7 as the St. Louis solution when Preiss emailed the response that “st. louid” was correct but the location was not. Seems so unusual a pairing given that at this point image10 is solidly Milwaukee and verse7 looks so strongly a fit for SF (or N.O.)
by erexere
Mon Feb 04, 2013 2:42 pm
Forum: The Secret
Topic: General Questions
Replies: 493
Views: 7393

Did Byron Preiss ever say one was in St. Louis? I remember hearing something like that…
HI I am interested in St. Louis.
Is there any image other than image 9 that people think could be saint louis? Also which verses do they think match best… I’m open minded here.
My thoughts…Image nine appears to be Mount Stephens in Yoho National Park the leg eater is at the mount Stephens club in Montreal (too obvious). The hat on the right side is an outline of mount Stephen in Yoho national park, Canada.

Not much activity in thought and idea exchanges for St. Louis these days. I would like to think there is a casque for St. Louis but some think this image is for Canada.

xsdjr

Not much activity in thought and idea exchanges for St. Louis these days. I would like to think there is a casque for St. Louis but some think this image is for Canada.

I understand… But I think St. Louis could be a different image… Is there any other image that matches St. Louis or any other verse???????
People have been looking at the images and verse match ups for 36 years and not found them in the “commonly accepted” locations with the “commonly accepted” verses. I am favoring that some of these are incorrect, because their cities have been dug up for 36 years by our treasure hunters. I’m of the mindset that these hunters are not stupid and if the treasure was those locations, they would have found a few more.

Oh, once again…… Did Preiss ever say one was in St. Louis? I remember hearing that he may have told the Chicago, Cleveland or other guys that one was there. Let me know.

funsun

Oh, once again…… Did Preiss ever say one was in St. Louis? I remember hearing that he may have told the Chicago, Cleveland or other guys that one was there. Let me know.

Not sure I recall hearing that but STL has been discussed before. You can search STL in the threads.
Several people are working on STL and I have been helping others. I’m not dismissing Montreal. Just looking into STL.

karleen

Not sure I recall hearing that but STL has been discussed before. You can search STL in the threads.
Several people are working on STL and I have been helping others. I’m not dismissing Montreal. Just looking into STL.

In 2004, johann said he received an e-mail from BP, stating there was one in St Louis. I haven’t seen the e-mail, but I believe Egbert (and others) saw it.
By 2006, after searching like mad, Johann was doubting the information (or, the interpretation of what BP wrote).
Some of the doubt had to be coming from the leg eater statue in image 9 pointing to Montreal and verse 2 being matched with New Orleans. And, I read someplace (?) that what Preiss wrote was similar to, ‘You’re right about a clue regarding St. Louis’…but, he could have meant something other than the city. (St. Louis Cathedral?)

Unknown

Unknown:
johann said he received an e-mail from BP, stating there was one in St Louis.

The text of that email: “Very impressive work esp since the book is 20 years old. I think you deserve to know that you are correct about st. Louid,but not correct about the location.thanks for all your excellent work.” Without the full text of Johann’s original email to Preiss (which we don’t have), the response quoted above lacks the context necessary to draw any conclusions. Specifically, what “location” they are talking about. Fortunately, there are other ways to know that there can be no treasure in St. Louid, or St. Louis.

Nice job, oroQuest. You very well could be correct. Hopefully, you are near the area, and can test the theory yourself.

Looking over these very old posts, I also think there is a location in Forest Park, and solution is Verse 5. It gets you to a very specific point. Here is a map of Forest Park at background:
http://www.slfp.com/SLFP-FPFEmap.htm
Lane -(references Carr Lane Drive in Forest Park, which is the location to start the search. Carr Lane Road is a one way road with a forest on the east, and a picnic area and trees on the west. The only standing structure visible is an old white stone restroom, that also has a white stone privacy wall on both the north end and the south end)
Two Twenty Two -( Washington’s Birthday. Refers to Washington Drive in Forest Park. Washington Drive intersects Concourse Drive in Forest Park at a roundabout. Concourse Drive is just up the hill/slope of Carr Lane Drive. When standing at the white stone wall, Concourse Drive makes an arc of streetlights over the area) There are also two roundabouts on Concourse drive just up the hill from the white stone restroom.
You’ll see an arc of lights (when at the south stone wall, Concourse Drive is up the incline at a higher elevation.  The only things visible from this location other than trees are the streetlights of Concourse Drive)
Weight and roots extended
Together saved the site
(This is an historical reference for Forest Park.
The Forest Park area in the 1850’s was knows as Dogtown, and was mined for coal and clay for bricks.  There was no way to get the heavy bricks and coal (weight) to the Mississippi River until the Pacific Railroad layed 5 miles of track (routes extended) to the area.  That allowed the area to flourish.  The City then took some of this land to create Forest Park. See point 3 of this article below for history)
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/cur … e#stream/0
Of granite walls (many in Forest Park including Korean War Wall)
Windswept halls (the outdoor Muny Opera in Forest Park)
Citadel in the night (McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park)
A wingless bird ascended
Born of ancient dreams of flight (Forest Parks Great Hot Air Balloon Races)
Beneath the only standing member
Of a forest (Carr Lane Drive is a one way street bounded on the east by a processional forest.  The other side is a picnic area and trees.  The only standing member of a forest (other than the trees) is a building which is the white stone restrooms with a north and south privacy wall)
To the South
White Stone Closest (refers to the south white stone privacy wall)
At twelve paces
From the west side (the west side would be the roughly one-foot thick end of the wall-a very specific starting point. 12 paces may have been Byron Preiss paces, or if a pace equals 2.5 feet, that would be 30 feet from the wall.
Get permission
To dig out
(Forest Park is a historical site -home of 1904 Worlds Fair and 1904 Olympics.  It is owned by the City of St. Louis. This very specific location though a picnic area, and would have been secluded enough for Preiss to bury a casque at night and be shielded from view by the white stone building itself)
To see this area and building for yourself, go to Googlemaps, and type in Carr Lane Drive St. Louis. Go onto street view and look around the area with a 360 degree view. You will see the building, and the white stone wall on he left is actually he south wall.
One last thought. Carr Lane Road was named after William Carr Lane, the first Mayor of St. Louis. It is my thought that this image of William Carr Lane is used as the starting image for Image 9. Look at the bumpy hair on the right side of his head, the swirls of hair, and the X on the lapel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carr_Lane
If you look at the mouth in Image 9, and look at the map of Forest Park, the bottom of the mouth is Carr Lane Road, the top of the mouth would be Concourse Drive, and the two roundabouts are the nostrils on the man in image 9. This white stone building where the casque would be is exactly “under your nose” in Image 9.
Everyone is entitle to their opinions, and these are mine.

Unknown

Unknown:
Hopefully, you are near the area, and can test the theory yourself.

Is this the modern equivalent of “It would not be a waste of time to dig there, but I make no guarantees whatsoever”?

oroQuest

Looking over these very old posts, I also think there is a location in Forest Park, and solution is Verse 5. It gets you to a very specific point. Here is a map of Forest Park at background:
http://www.slfp.com/SLFP-FPFEmap.htm
Lane -(references Carr Lane Drive in Forest Park, which is the location to start the search. Carr Lane Road is a one way road with a forest on the east, and a picnic area and trees on the west. The only standing structure visible is an old white stone restroom, that also has a white stone privacy wall on both the north end and the south end)
Two Twenty Two -( Washington’s Birthday. Refers to Washington Drive in Forest Park. Washington Drive intersects Concourse Drive in Forest Park at a roundabout. Concourse Drive is just up the hill/slope of Carr Lane Drive. When standing at the white stone wall, Concourse Drive makes an arc of streetlights over the area) There are also two roundabouts on Concourse drive just up the hill from the white stone restroom.
You’ll see an arc of lights (when at the south stone wall, Concourse Drive is up the incline at a higher elevation.  The only things visible from this location other than trees are the streetlights of Concourse Drive)
Weight and roots extended
Together saved the site
(This is an historical reference for Forest Park.
The Forest Park area in the 1850’s was knows as Dogtown, and was mined for coal and clay for bricks.  There was no way to get the heavy bricks and coal (weight) to the Mississippi River until the Pacific Railroad layed 5 miles of track (routes extended) to the area.  That allowed the area to flourish.  The City then took some of this land to create Forest Park. See point 3 of this article below for history)
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/cur … e#stream/0
Of granite walls (many in Forest Park including Korean War Wall)
Windswept halls (the outdoor Muny Opera in Forest Park)
Citadel in the night (McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park)
A wingless bird ascended
Born of ancient dreams of flight (Forest Parks Great Hot Air Balloon Races)
Beneath the only standing member
Of a forest (Carr Lane Drive is a one way street bounded on the east by a processional forest.  The other side is a picnic area and trees.  The only standing member of a forest (other than the trees) is a building which is the white stone restrooms with a north and south privacy wall)
To the South
White Stone Closest (refers to the south white stone privacy wall)
At twelve paces
From the west side (the west side would be the roughly one-foot thick end of the wall-a very specific starting point. 12 paces may have been Byron Preiss paces, or if a pace equals 2.5 feet, that would be 30 feet from the wall.
Get permission
To dig out
(Forest Park is a historical site -home of 1904 Worlds Fair and 1904 Olympics.  It is owned by the City of St. Louis. This very specific location though a picnic area, and would have been secluded enough for Preiss to bury a casque at night and be shielded from view by the white stone building itself)
To see this area and building for yourself, go to Googlemaps, and type in Carr Lane Drive St. Louis. Go onto street view and look around the area with a 360 degree view. You will see the building, and the white stone wall on he left is actually he south wall.
One last thought. Carr Lane Road was named after William Carr Lane, the first Mayor of St. Louis. It is my thought that this image of William Carr Lane is used as the starting image for Image 9. Look at the bumpy hair on the right side of his head, the swirls of hair, and the X on the lapel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Carr_Lane
If you look at the mouth in Image 9, and look at the map of Forest Park, the bottom of the mouth is Carr Lane Road, the top of the mouth would be Concourse Drive, and the two roundabouts are the nostrils on the man in image 9. This white stone building where the casque would be is exactly “under your nose” in Image 9.
Everyone is entitle to their opinions, and these are mine.

What other Image gives us a cask in Canada as Preiss acknowledged, then?
What do the numbers in Image 9 that aren’t the coordinates for St. Louis mean?

I don’t know anything about the Canada, and hesitated to even mention Image 9 because I know that many believe it is Canada.
So if you ignore the Image 9 comments in my post, and just focus on Verse 5, I think it makes a very strong case for Forest Park in St. Louis.

oroQuest

Ignore the Image 9… focus on Verse 5

Oh man, are you in for a good time. Enjoy the rabbit hole.
That being said, very impressive work esp since the book is 30 years old. I think you deserve to know that you are correct about st. Louid, but not correct about the location. Thanks for all your excellent work!

Spinner– I will be at the Vandeventer Gates around 12:30.

I’ll definitely be checking in on Sunday after that cliff hanger!!  Looking forward to seeing what you dig up.  Best of Luck!

spinner–
Wow!  Believe it or not, I came up with the same theory using the same pic and verse with so many of the same details.  (Didn’t I describe all this in a previous post?)  There are some details you consider that I have not.  Long ago I carefully measured the distance between the ends of the Vandeventer Gate, and I probed with a stick near the lampost.  Where are you in St. Louis?  Why don’t we work together on this?

lamp posts do seem to be a recurring theme…
wilhouse

We seem to be forgetting that only the first 5 lines of the verse were used to get to the lamppost. What about the other 9?? It’s too easy for the lamp to be the spot.

I thought that the 21 meant the U shape of the Vandeventer Gates.  I probed in the middle.

A couple of years ago I probed the Vandeventer Gates area with a pole to discover that the entire area, at least the gates, has a layer of stone a foot below the surface.  Of course, there is a chance I missed something.

Oops.  Spinner already mentioned this point in a previous post.
I have always puzzled about the bumpy hat.  I am clueless about this.

FB, sometimes another pair of eyes helps, but you’ve done a fantastic job digging up pictures and connecting things to the images and verses!  That fountain find was a big one!
Speaking of the fountain, I found another pic of it on webshots:
I cropped it from here:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/132 … 4713VQdHNM
I think this one is a stretch, but I’ll post it anyway just in case… the roofline of a little men’s room building kinda matches the negative space under the folded hands (sorry, my sketching isn’t very good):
Here’s the bigger pic of that building:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/376 … 8442lXYegc
– Brian

I have a history of not being able to see significant stuff in my own pictures, let alone those of others. So I hope one or two of you will visit
http://www.webshots.com/
and type the following into the search box, quotes and all, and search through all 57 pages for something significant:
“forest park” “st. louis”
I just did, and I feel like I know the park pretty well as a result.
Edit: Oh, and try
http://www.flickr.com/
. Lots of pages there, too.

Nice find on the fountain pic, Jambone! It is good to know it still exists. Not sure about the negative space thing, though.
Regarding:
Here is a sovereign people
Who build palaces to shelter
Their heads for a night!
Earlier, spinner indicated that this might have to do with the World’s Fair. Well, he’s right. The great buildings of the 1904 World’s Fair (The Louisiana Purchase Exposition) were called
palaces
. They included:
The Palace of Agriculture
The Palace of Education and Social Economy
The Palace of Electricity and Machinery
The Palace of Horticulture
The Palace of Liberal Arts
The Palace of Machinery
The Palace of Manufactures
The Palace of Mines and Metallurgy
The Palace of Transportation
The Palace of Varied Industries
to shelter / Their heads for a night!
must refer to the fact that the buildings – large and opulent though they were, did not stand for very long. Most of the buildings were made of “staff,” comprised of hemp fiber and plaster of paris, and were not intended to stand for long (fragments of staff can still be found in Forest Park, by the way). The palaces were demolished when the fair ended. More can be read here:
http://www.tlaupp.com/
, and a number of other places online.
As for locating precisely where X marks the spot, by elimination I think it must be contained in these lines, three of which we know refer to the Vandeventer Place Gates and the lion lamp.
Fifteen rows down to the ground
In the middle of twenty-one
From end to end
Only three stand watch

There are still
so many unanswered questions
. Like…
What is the Dutch connection? Is it really just “Vandeventer”?
Did you know that “Vandeventer Place Gates” contains precisely 21 letters?
Fifteen rows? Of what? And why “down to the ground”?
“As the sound of friends”? Whose friends? Friends in general? Fair-goers? Quakers??
Is it significant that the word “hours” appears both in the verse and the floral clock?
In P9, I understand the “39” (it’s one of the bounding latitudes of St. Louis), but why 73 and 5? or is that a B and and S? What could any of those refer to, given that Forest Park is the general location?
His collar looks like the upside-down outline of a building. Are there buildings in St. Louis with that outline? World’s Fair palaces?
What the heck is that animal / hoof thingy??
What is the weird sigil on the flower? A musical note to indicate the Muny?
Why is the outline of his hat bumpy? Does it match some geographic feature?

Looking at the photo of the gates I notice that there are 15 rows of stones from the words “Vandeventer” to the ground.

Major head-smack.
Reasoning backwards from the fact that we are 95% certain this is St. Louis, I thought, what kind of confirmer would JJP have worked into the image? Going by other images, he could have chosen a map, a famous building, or a landmark. I couldn’t find an outline of Missouri, so I looked for the ubiquitous symbol of St. Louis – the Gateway Arch. What better place to hide it than in an
ARCHED EYEBROW
? I think this eye might be a representation of the Gateway Arch with the Mississippi River in the foreground:
As for the upside-down collar outline… What about this?

Whew what a last couple days. Finally back and checking up on ya’ll hope everyone in the St.  Louis are on here is well and safe . As alt said if anyone needs anything let me know and I’ll do what I can. Carol

Johann,
Sorry for the late post. Since the storm & winds it has been crazy! I was out driving in it. yeah stupid me! Totally clueless that it was even coming. All of my family is without power…well everyone but me. they are all closer to the airport. St. Louis can NOT handle winds.  me thinks that we will be in a NIGHTMARE if or when an earthquake hits home.
Needless to say we called off our trip to the arch. we will wait a weekend or two.
Johann how are you doing? Spinner, how about you? If you guys have any fallen trees & need help moving em let me know I have 2 brothers & a hubby that can help. Rumballs home is lightless. Her power is off. Otherwise her family is fine. She is going kinda crazy w/o her puter!!

Much thanks for the offers of assistance.  I am in an apartment, so I do not have to deal with home damage.  I hope all is well in Forest Park.  We really should all get together and work on this hunt.  My email address is
[email protected]

Johann ,
I’m here to cheer you all on . I hope you all do find something in forest park to add to another of it’s great things . I only hope that I can be of some help to you all . I am a sideline cheerleader , but hope I may be able to add to your quest . You have gotten me interested to see something in my hometown and am now only just knowing of this hunt . You have all done a great amount of work on this and I’m in awe of it . HH , Carol

If you guys bring me the dirt, I will be happy to unload it for you.  Unfortunately, that is about all the good I can do here in NM.

Somebody in the Forest Park office told me this summer that anything found above ground is retrievable but they do not allowing digging. Asked around but no one has any idea of who else to speak to regarding other options.

Some think he ment STL Quebec. I will address all of these in posts soon. I’m still around and hope to post the various things we need to research to tell us if we are right or wrong.

If you say “Soon” one more time, I’m gonna shoot you.

take aim 1 2 3 FIRE!
http://hubpages.com/hub/Shoot_Your_Desk … esktop_Toy

I have not got the information to Forest Park yet but I think I found the numbers that confirm this one goes to STL.
The numbers 23 and 39 are in hidden as curles in the hair. The thing in the flower that some of thought was a backward STL BLues logo is actually the number 90 prehaps resembleing a backward STL Blues logo prehaps not.
90 23 is right on the Longitude of STL 39 north lattitude is around Alton Illinois however 38.64 is right on STL it is possible the number was rounded up. BP was definately talking about STL MO. For added piece of mind in the next few days I will try some alternative interpritations of the numbers i.e. 32 in stead of 23 and see the location it gets us.
The next thing is to look for park confirmers and possible alternative verses to fit. Verse 6 is for now my preferred verse. If we could find something to confirm Forest Park my confidence in Verse 6 would go way up. I still think the leg eater is the park confirmer. The reason we may keep running into dead ends on this one could be that it does not exist anymore and may not have for some time before any of us got into this. It may also have been across the street or on a street lamp or something. If I got the right park they should be able to figure out the leg eater very quickly.
I will post again soon
.

Just some pictures of the Vandeventer Place Gate I found online…

boogie – I would help if I could, but I don’t see what you see. Can you be more explicit (like with precise latitude/longitudes matching up with parts of the hat)?

johann

I thought that the 21 meant the U shape of the Vandeventer Gates.  I probed in the middle.

I’m sure you’re right; I just thought it was an interesting coincidence.

OK. Here’s the outline around St Louis.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=St+Louis& … 1&t=k&om=1
Matches up pretty good with the
bumby hat
.  I hate to do this but FB, can you do any magic with you graphics skills?
Just turn the image9 pic so the hat is on the left and you’ll see it.

i think boogie is talking about the line of the river that runs down see where it “bumps” out to the right?  that would be the out line of the top of the hat….me thinks…

I still may be looking at the wrong bump. I swear I don’t see it.
Something to consider is that NO river is straight; they pretty much all have bumps that wishful thinking can turn into an exact match. What makes his hat a distinctive match to this river?

yeah i see your point. the only “bumpy” part that i see is where 40 crosses. but if he weere to draw a hat that was not alittle bumpy that would make the hat very odd looking & would stand out at once. maybe the hat is just a checker dome & nothing more. that would put you south of forest park.

CMSCHUT aka Rumball

ALT

i was asking the guy at the jewel box about the dog horse thingie & he just thought i was nuts. he did read the verse & was TRYing (not very well) to help. I think the only think that he knew of were about the jewel box & he also has a love for the old world fair i think. he kept repeating how he has old pictures at home from the fair.
i love the idea about the blob but what or why would there be that opening like a door or something there??? are we looking at the wrong angle?

Once you go  down this line of thinking, this path, there may be no turning back….
(The images are rendierings of 1982)

ALT

i love the idea about the blob but what or why would there be that opening like a door or something there??? are we looking at the wrong angle?

I think the blob represents the fountain, but it doesn’t have to be an exact rendering. The shape just has to be strongly suggestive. We see steps going out and then in, with water coming out the top.

Dogtown is not far away.  Mounted-police stables are not far away.  Yet, perhaps it is a gazelle after all.

i was asking the guy at the jewel box about the dog horse thingie & he just thought i was nuts. he did read the verse & was TRYing (not very well) to help. I think the only think that he knew of were about the jewel box & he also has a love for the old world fair i think. he kept repeating how he has old pictures at home from the fair.
i love the idea about the blob but what or why would there be that opening like a door or something there??? are we looking at the wrong angle?

At one time, I thought it was mentioned that the animal is more likely to be something like a gazelle, that the upper “ear” on the top of the head is instead a horn.  The markings on the cheek are not exactly matching a Thomson or Grant species of gazelle, but I thought I had a matching image last year.  I’m still diging thru my notes to find it.  The leg would also match a gazelle or similar animal well.  It may be that “gazelle” or whatever is not the clue, but the name like Thompson or Grant could lead to a park name.  I’ll keep searching…

gManTexas

Hey, go bananas! Prove us all wrong![/quote
You know, I just might.

Interesting but for now I still think this verse goes to New Orleans. If Verse 6 turns out to be wrong then we can revisit this. The clues in Image 9 strongly indicate the Pagoda circle area of Forest Park. The verse seems to reinforce this. It looks like the carque is burried in a terrace/hanging planter area.
Mind you I have not been to Forest Park yet and online images can not begin to replace an actual visit but I think I may have actually seen the dig site in one of the pictures of the Pagoda.

Remember our lonely “only three stand watch” lamppost in Forest Park, the one near the Vandeventer Gate, with only three of what were originally four lions? I thought it was unique, but I was wrong. Here is the one in the park:
And here it
was
– the same lamp, but in another part of the park long ago:
There are several fully-intact surviving specimens. Found these at flickr.com:
And they are so large you can see them in satellite images. All appear to be only a street or two away from Forest Park. Here are some at the corner of Kingshighway and Maryland Plaza:
…and the corner of Euclid and Lindell:
Others are readily found if you visit maps.live.com and squint at birds-eye views. Several are easily visible at Google Maps using the streetview option:

I will be busey through Thanksgiving then I should have more time to work on this. In the mean time to restate what my curent therory is: I think Image 9’s clues indicate STL. The Arch and old Courthouse along with the LAT/LONG of STL. The image only slightly hints at Forest Park with the number ten hole flag and maybe the Jewel Box. The image does however appear to hint at Verse 6 when it is turned upsidedown the “arms extended bar that binds looks to be illistrated. If this is the correct verse then it certainly looks like it fits or could/could have fit Forest Park. Their are several possible locations within the park that could fit but the Muny Theater and Pagoda Circle area look like the best fit.
I will try to get dad enrolled in the Friends Of Forest Park Program over the next few weeks. Once this is accomplished we may be able to access more information and records that can tell us if this is the correct way of thinking and if it is not what is. This will still take time to get the information we need however. We will not show up on the first day of membership with a shuvle
and we will have to ease into this.
I hope to sometime in the next few weeks also update the Image to Verse Match thread with possible combinations if this is and is not correct.

so to sum it up for you boogie, he will let us know soon.

I am in St. Louis and would love to help in any way I can.  I do not want any glory.

Johann,
I am sure that if any of us “far-away-seekers” have clues or hunches
you will be the first to know…and you can go a-hunting.
Thanks for being available.
AP

yep, you are our designated digger when we finally pinpoint this darn thing.

I will be posting my thoughts about why I think Image 9 and Verse 6 go to Forest Park in STL here from now on. Anyone can read these posts but I am primarly writing to thoes of you close enough to STL that you can check things out on a more regular basis.
First lets look at the city confirmers. I know the legeater is a stumbleing block for us. All of you continue to investigate this on the Image 9 thread. One big reason to think this is STL is that we know STL has a casque and of the four images not definately linked to a spacific city indicate STL like this image. Thinking about Montreal is not totally wrong either though as we know a casque is in Canada. I however think the Canadian image is either Image 3 or Image 11. If Image 3 is Canadian it likely goes to Halifax if Image 11 is Canadian then it goes to Ottawa.
The STL landmarks are The Arch hidden as a plemish in the face and The old Courthouse hidden upsidedown as the black colar. The Lat/Long of STL is 38 45′ N 90 23′ W the numbers 39 and 23 are hidden in the hair the number 90 is hidden in the flower as a reversed STL Blues logo.
Now this STL Blues logo is further significant as it gets us to Forest Park. The Blues played in the Checkardome at the time this bookk was published and it was called the Checkardome at the time of publication. The arena had various names during its existance. A Hampton Inn is on the site that the dome was on. IF a checkar pattern like that in the image was on the Checkardome or was very obvious near the dome then this is a further confirmer of the park. That gets you to the main entrance of the park. Another possible clue is that the outline of the MO border with IL is represented by the right side of the hat.
The first thing to investigate is if the checkar pattern if it was near the main entrance of FP and not near a potential casque site in Montreal then this will likely confirm the image is STL.
The park clues are the Jewel Box hidden upsidedown in the chest area and the hole flag from the golf course. Looking at a map of the park it looks like their are four areas the casque could be. The Jewel Box, The World’s Fair Pavillion, The Muny/PAgoda Circle area or the Art Hill area. In a future post I willl explain why I think some of the sites are more likely then others to be the site.
The verse connection is between two arms extended beneth the bar that binds. turn the image upsidedown and look at the checkar pattern in the chest area looks like arms extended and a bar that binds now notice the image at the bottom is below the bar that binds.
To keep the rest of you going I am concerned that the Hands, Nose and shirt may be clues we are missing.
In a future post I will list some things we need to research to confirm we are right not the least of which is the legeater. The MO Historical Society is interested but I do not think the park department is. I E-Mailed the Park Department a long time back and never heard anything. We will need the help of both to reconstruct the park on paper as it was in the early ’80s one or two trees cut down or added could make the differance in finding or accounting for this casque or not.

Good work, Catherwood,
I saw that the park was established in 1968 but did not see
that the Butterfly House was too new to consider…
(Darn…That was a great sculpture of a butterfly!..and the
three-curved archway was so similar…)
I did contact the National Carousel Assoc. to see if there were
any documentation of the “leg-eater” found on a carousel.
They were not aware of it.  (The Dentzel Carousel which is
now at Faust Park, used to be near Forest Park…small world)
Back to the drawing board!
AP

Scottrocks,
Earlier, I posted this observation of what looks like a moth in the hair of the
man in image 9.
With your direction toward St. Louis, I did some research.
There is a place called the “SOPHIA M. SACHS BUTTERFLY HOUSE”
in the Faust County Park of St. Louis.
Here are a couple of pictures from the park:
I see a similarity to the gateway arch of the Butterfly House and the small silhouette of a building by the legeater.
Here is a huge butterfly/moth that may be the one I saw in the “man”s” hair of image 9
There is also a famous Dentzel  Carousel at Faust Park… I will look to see if the
Leg-eater is possibly a decorative carving on one of the animals of the carousel.
Still searching…
AP

While i do like the similarity between the triple arch and our mystery silhouette, that park is too new:
“Ground was broken in June of 1997 and construction began on the Butterfly House.”
http://www.butterflyhouse.org/about/bhhistory.aspx

If anyone wishes to discuss the St. Louis location please let me know!

Johann , Spinner or anyone ,
I’ll be at Barnes on Monday . If you need me to stop by  Forest park to look at anything or get Pics for you all let me know . I’m off on Mon. &  Tues. and can usually get the kids down to a park with a little nagging at them . LOL.  I also  have 2 days left of my vacation and don’t go back til Sat . Let me know and I’ll do my best . I really only live about 20 min away. Carol

Ok, so stepping outside of my former solution, should we be doing more at the muny than the jewel box?  I have not done a lot to investigate this sight, as proven by the fact that it took me 2 orbits with the car and a lot of walking to find the fountain in the first place.  The musical note could represent the music instead of the Blues, and the smile on the guys face being half a frown and half a smile does represent the comedy and tradgedy masks that represent the theater.  Johann, this is probably a good oppourtunity for us and anyone else interested to get together at a time when the muny does not have much activity and go on a little walk about.  We keep our eyes pealed for 15 rows down to the ground and 3 standing watch and maybe something new will pop out at us.  It is kind of exciting to think about!
Footnote, all the digging I did around the gate was 2′ or less, and per others, there could be up to 3′ of dirt to uncover to get to the casque.  Therefore, all of my previous excavations just might not count at all!
Brett

Interestingly, I will be passing through St. Louis on Friday. But as I will be driving a 26′ U-Haul with my car in tow, I doubt I will have a chance to stop by Forest Park. Depends on how brave I’m feeling and how soon I get there, but hey, maybe I’ll stop off and take some photos. If anyone happens to be there and I DO stop by, I’m the guy in the big orange-and-white truck towing the green Cavalier.
In any case, I may soon have an opportunity to simply drive there by car, as St. Louis is only a few hours from my new home in Kansas.

Spinner ,
I’ll try and get to the Muny tomorrow or Monday  and maybe take some pics for you guys .  I’m just waiting on the new Treasures Trove to come out and am in Limbo . This intrests me because it’s my hometown . I wish I knew of this awhile ago I probably would’ve been through it all with you all . I ‘m hoping you can get this for all your hard efforts and am willing to help. I also don’t want to get your hopes up , but may be able to get some kind of sonar detector from a friend , but he’s out of town at this time . I’ll let you know , Carol

Wow, a contact with technology, you are officially my new best friend.  I am planning to go down to the Muny on Sunday at noon if anyone wants to join in a conclave of sorts, if we dig, they cant arrest us all!!!
I will be doing the new Treasure Trove book as well, so when the time comes know that you have a friend in me to bounce things around with.  There will be more rings to find this time, and because of the distribution pattern last time, The St. Louis area is a very good candidate to get one in our back yard.

Spinner ,
I e-mailed my friend , but don’t know for sure . I don’t really know if that’s what I’m asking for . Maybe we can bring him along , He’s a retired Police chief. Maybe we won’t get thrown in Jail . Hey wish I could come down , but it’s back yo work for me . Hope you get Lucky. My thoughts are the Muny or the Art Museum . There are Fairies on the building of the Muny and the namesakes could be the stars . When I was at the W.F. Pavillion there were pavers with peoples names on them . You know the donations thing . Good luck HH, Carol

All sounds good.  This is exciting!  I could probably be at the Jewel Box area around 12:30 on Sunday.

Good luck to you both .

Spinner & Johann ,
I visited The Park Monday after going to Barnes . It has been going through my mind how all these different  refrences in the park be tied to one spot  and as I was driving through the park  I saw a  SIGN.  Maybe it is under a sign in the park that would have all the refrences that are being made to Forest Park , Muny , w.f.pavillion, Jewel box etc. . There is actually one if you do go through the V.gates  over the bridge at the Lilly pond cross the street to the Fields and on the corner of the cross street there is a park sign . just a thought . I did take  a pic of a sign , but can’t post it it won’t  let me . Also on the sonar detector … He is checking on it. Carol

Carol– I have never thought of that idea before.  Thanks.

Not only that, but Daylight savings time comes into play.  15 rows can mean 15 minutes or 1500 hrs on the ‘rose’ clock.  So 3 oclock seemed reasonable.  The areas not to large even if there is a big variance possible.  I marked some spots to find the line (with some other hunters a while back) and probed the area.
BTW, if you probe here, there is an underlayment that feels like its left over from the worlds fair about 5″ to 6″ deep.  It is so solid that at this location, it is better to probe for a ‘soft’ spot than a hard one.  I have dug through this layer in my searches, so don’t jump up and down too much if you find a soft spot, it might be one of mine.

BTW, excellent work on the other Lamp posts.  I have not been back to this web-site in a long time, but I stumbled into one of those posts in the CWE sometime back.  There is a sushi and vodka bar called Sub-Zero, well, I tied one on and was walking north towards a friends car, when I looked up and the lions were looking back, all 4 standing watch.  Needless to say, it was a twilight zone moment for me…  Now ashamed for not posting it or working on this puzzle for a while…
However,
My new best friend is smarter than I am, and she will be entering the fray shortly….
Stay tuned.

spinner

Counting Casques before they are hatched… I did it last week and ate crow.

Not yet.  I’ve got to go get it first.

What if a row is a row?

That which we call a row, by any other name would mell as weet.

HOLY CRAP!!!
Outstanding, simply outstanding.  Your searching skills surpass all others.
Please tell me that you figured all of this out from Norway or some exotic place.
The center iron of the Vandeventer gates were moved to a Veterans Hospitol according to previous posts.  One of the pictures that you posted shows their configuration nicely.  Could definetly be 15 rows of bars on each gate, but these would really be collumns more so than rows, literarry license?
Your Blob soution derserves a trip with the camera to see if its still there.  Multiple angles of that puppy might just make it look even more like the blobinator.
My father marked a spot he thought he hit with his own technique (dowsing, no really, it works, he has proved it to me more than one time, its really weird) that I had never penetrated because it was too far from the gate area.  But your pic of the clock points to it at the 3 oclock direction.  Pop deserves more credit apparently.  The question I want to have answered, was if the clock was ever refered to as a rose clock, or if it possibly had roses in it at the time of the cache deposit.  Man was I wrong about the location, but that weird semi circle is there on the sight with a small stone wall, that does look out of place, the bench in your picture is even in the same place as it is now, in relationship to the semi circle.
The one heartbreak here, is that these pictures show a much greater amount of gardening in the area than is there now.  If the shizzle was burried near some of these plants, it could have been removed when the plants were taken out, if they were in fact ripped out on purpose.  See the bushes around the gate area?  See the plants to the right of the clock?  All of that is gone.  The plants to the right of the clock look like there could be a grouping in front of the lamp post, was there something there before too?  Some object?  Dang, pan right PAN RIGHT!!
Forest_Blight, officially, you rock!

spinner

My father marked a spot he thought he hit with his own technique (dowsing, no really, it works, he has proved it to me more than one time, its really weird)

I have to agree. I have successfully dowsed with coat hangers in my back yard and in the CZ. Not that I found the casque, but I have found water lines and electrical conduit…
wilhouse

spinner

Please tell me that you figured all of this out from Norway or some exotic place.

spinner

The center iron of the Vandeventer gates were moved to a Veterans Hospitol according to previous posts.

spinner

The question I want to have answered, was if the clock was ever refered to as a rose clock, or if it possibly had roses in it at the time of the cache deposit.

spinner

See the bushes around the gate area?  See the plants to the right of the clock?  All of that is gone.  The plants to the right of the clock look like there could be a grouping in front of the lamp post, was there something there before too?  Some object?  Dang, pan right PAN RIGHT!!

Not Norway at all, I’m afraid – just UNC’s magnificent interlibrary borrowing service. All of this came from the wonderful volume
Forest Park
by Caroline K. Loughlin and Catherine Anderson (1986). The book is enormous, chock full of pictures, and has a really good index.
Tonight I will look in the book for what happened to the iron gates themselves. I think I remember reading that the Vandeventer Place Gates were initially moved because Vandeventer Place was chosen as the site for a VA hospital. It would not be unheard of for the iron parts of the gate to have been moved back to their original home.
It’s possible. However, the original clock was so low to the ground that if the inscription and numbers were replaced with roses, they would lose much resolution. I think it had to consist of dense flowers close to the ground in order to be readable. The garden area just to the south, however, has been (and still is?) rose gardens for quite some time. You can see the rose beds in the foreground of the floral clock picture. The 1986 book refers to the clock only as the “floral clock,” saying that it (like its later neighbor to the NW) was dedicated to Korean War veterans.
I believe the black lump at the far right edge of the floral clock photo is the base of the lamp. If there were shrubs there in 1981/2, they would have hidden signs of recent burial.
I can’t wait to see more pictures of the ugly blob-fountain!

spinner–
Did my email get to you?  I have difficulty remembering whether or not I sent it.  My address is:
[email protected]

Keep in mind that the book
specifically states that no casque
was buried in anyone’s garden.
I am sure that this was placed there
for its humor value, but it is something
to keep in mind when plotting final spots.

The ohio casque was found in an elevated planter box, effectively the same thing.

The exact same lamp (
only three stand watch
?) at its original location at the corner of Kingshighway and Lindell. Probably dating to the 1890s, it was moved to its current location at the Vandeventer Place Gates in 1958. By the early 1980s, it had lost all its arms and gained a lot of rust:
I also found out that the Vandeventer Place Gates once had a wrought iron center carriage gate. Only the pedestrian gates remain. The center gate was gone by the early 1980s – dunno where.
Oh, and as someone mentioned here long ago, the
namesakes meeting
might refer to the confluence of the
Miss
issippi and the
Miss
ouri.

Some bad news about the floral clock, I’m afraid. It wasn’t made of roses (so much for the rows/rose pun theory, which I rather liked), and the ‘3’ didn’t align with the Vandeventer Place Gates or the lamppost; noon pointed NE and 3:00 pointed southeast. The clock was 35 feet wide, had aluminum hands that really kept time, and was powered by an underground motor. The flowers read “HOURS AND FLOWERS SOON FADE AWAY.” The floral inscription and numbers were cast in concrete at some point.
Here is the true layout of things, so far as I can tell:
But
Fifteen rows down to the ground
may still make sense, as there
was
a 3:00 position, and it was on the ground. Perhaps the former 3:00 position should be investigated with a GPR?

Finally (and I think you will especially like this)… I may have identified our mystery blob,
assuming
St. Louis is the right city and Forest Park is correct:
It’s a fountain located right next to the Muny, a short walk from the Jewel Box. At least, the fountain was there in 1986. A satellite image of what I
think
is the same spot today shows a circular sidewalk arrangement built around it:
I still don’t know what our weird animal/leg combo might refer to, except that that the St. Louis Zoo is in Forest Park, and the park once had a hippodrome in it.

Awesome work, Forest Blight!  Spinner, let’s work together to find this thing.  You can keep it.

Johann, you started the St. Louis find.  One of you keep the casque, the other keep the key…it’s a toss up if the gem is delivered.
wilhouse

Counting Casques before they are hatched… I did it last week and ate crow.

I just got into this.
I live waking distance from forest park.
Looks like I need shovel.

Sorry scott, that sounds a little too punchy.  Tough to see my sense of humor in print.  (just not fuuny)

i thought it was funny

I’m going to read over it a few more times Boogie.  I will let you know if it is funny soon.

I would also like to say that there are  FAYS  outside on the muny building itself. What about the namesakes meeting here?  Could that be the Stars that come to the Muny to perform?

catherwood

At one time, I thought it was mentioned that the animal is more likely to be something like a gazelle, that the upper “ear” on the top of the head is instead a horn.  The markings on the cheek are not exactly matching a Thomson or Grant species of gazelle, but I thought I had a matching image last year.  I’m still diging thru my notes to find it.  The leg would also match a gazelle or similar animal well.  It may be that “gazelle” or whatever is not the clue, but the name like Thompson or Grant could lead to a park name.  I’ll keep searching…

Oh great that would take us to Grants Farm.
i havent been there in long years . they keep the budwiser horses there. the hunt makes visting places like these so much more fun. i luvs it!

Spinner ,
I know you will find it soon .

dp12345

Here is your St. Louis solution.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QYdcj7 … sp=sharing

Do you have an explanation for these photos? Pretty convincing just to be coincidence…
https://imgur.com/gallery/FnRb2Bo

Here is your St. Louis solution.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QYdcj7 … sp=sharing

I am still around but have nothing new to say. I think Imaage 9 is STL and I think that Verse 6 is the correct match. I also think the verse seems to describe several locations in Forest Park. I will be getting involved with Friends of Forest Park in the near future and try to figure this out. My goal is to either unearth this casque or account for its location. By that I mean it was here but got destroyed when they relandscaped the area.
I will let you know Sooooooooooooooooon

spinner

All I ask if you find it is to give me some props so I can get on the TV show ‘Treasure Hunters’ in the fall

Spinner….may I add another WOW to the fire.  I would say that you are very close to this one.  I still dont know why you were hesitant about seeing if there were other (Secret) hunters who could have joined you at the site for more ideas.  A second set of eyes can do wonders.  For future reference, the members hunting the elusive 10 casques are not the same animal as some from A Treasures Trove.  We all just want these things found.
Again…..GREAT work.  Really cool to see that you have come to the same basic area as Johann did some time ago…..must be right…or some dang weird coincidence.
Why do you keep saying this?  Why do you think finding one of these gaurantees a spot on next season?

Would sure like to get a closer look at these 22 panels….you never know…..
http://www.mohistory.org/content/Exhibi … story.aspx

Great site here with some pictures of a couple of the things at the park…
http://www.cheshirelodge.net/documents/ … sculp..pdf

spinner (and anyone else in the area)–
I would love to get together to work on this mystery.  Over coffee?  I’ll buy.

Fox, I did not come to all of my conclusions alone.  I have had conversations with Johann a couple of years ago on the subject.  He totally gets the credit for the ‘only three stand watch’ solution being the lamp post, not me, I got that from him.
Side track.  The hands in the pic to me do represent a golf grip, the fingers are not intertwined, look closely, they over lap one hand over the other.  This takes me back to a prior concept that I want to throw out there to contradict myself.
“In the middle of twenty-one”  the letter in the middle is twen
t
yone, or a t, and where do you hit golf balls from, a tee box right?
Also, when one typically plays golf, you play in a group of four as the standard.  While one person plays their shot, three stand watch, (as long as you have good golf etiquite Scott!).  This is espessially true on the Tee Box itself.  The seventh hole seems to draw attention, although it is not a dog-leg.  I have a feeling that digging up the center of the Tee Box is something I might be willing to do, however, it would have to be covert.  Definetly worth probing, and with success, possibly asking permission.

Hey Johann.  We should get together sometime and hash through some things shouldn’t we?  I have been meaning to hit the missori History Museum in the park to see if we can get into some archives. Email me at
[email protected]
.
I have a hypothesis that I cannot substantiate, but does go with the rest of the puzzles previous concept.  To the East of the Vandeventor gate and just North maybe 40 yards away there is a lilly pond that has a small bridge across a small straight.  I need to find out if this pond has a name, the theory being that there is a possiblity that each of the ponds has a unique name, say Fairy Pool, and Gnome Pond or something, and that they meet at the small striaght where the little foot bridge is.  Its out there, I know, but its one of the major landmarks in the area that provides a ‘meeting’ point.  If the pond has two unique names, or even one name that fits, the little bridge may be the true destination.  Just a bit of craziness, I know, but at the end of that bridge, on the Gate side, there is a place where the ground has collapsed, what if the lexan cover over the casque gave way? Yeah, right, like we could be so lucky.
Silly, I know, but we have to keep thinking right?  The bridge that is there is farily new, I would love to get my hands on a circa 1980 picture of what was there before, or knowlege of if the ponds themselves were even there at the time, and if not what was?  A jungle gym the shape of our blob?

forest_blight

boogie – I would help if I could, but I don’t see what you see. Can you be more explicit (like with precise latitude/longitudes matching up with parts of the hat)?

Boog