Mystery!

Some of our loot.

Put on your thinking caps, because zoinks, we’ve got a mystery on our hands.

We’ve been Tweeting and Facebooking about it as it has been happening, but we’re going to lay the series of events out for you right here. We want to know what you think.

About 6 weeks ago, Director Andy found a 50-cent piece on the front steps of the house, just outside our outer doors. The 50-cent piece was painted gold. A week or so passed, and he found another one with a penny next to it. Soon, we started finding 50-cent pieces every couple of days, either on the front step or on a table inside our garden that can be reached through the fence facing 15th street.

This past Sunday (12/18/11), Weekend Manager Lindsey found one on the front steps when she opened, another one on the steps later in the day, and a third on the table in the garden when she locked up. Today, we found one at the front door at noon (it wasn’t there when we opened at 10:00) and one more when we closed for the day.

We’re stumped.

15th and Locust is a busy intersection during the day. The neighborhood is teeming with high school students from Confluence Academy across the street and residents from Locust, Washington Avenue and other adjacent streets are always out and about and walking their dogs.  Construction workers from the Public Library project are everywhere, and we always have general downtown foot traffic.

Campbell House has had its share of mysteries over the years. We occasionally get mail addressed to members of the family — we’ll post some of those tomorrow — and we’ve always had reports of supernatural activity, but this is the first regular and consistent ongoing puzzle. Because of the 50-cent pieces, we’ve been more enthusiastic than usual to unlock the doors and work in the garden to see what we’ll find.

And maybe this is someone’s Christmas gift to Campbell House. The donation is certainly nice, but what a story! The mysterious donor had given us some excitement over the last few weeks, and we appreciate the daily riddle it brings.

What do you think? Comment here, on our Facebook page, or tweet us at @campbellmuseum. We’re looking forward to your take on this happy little happenstance.