Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — A man who was hiking along a hillside trail on the city's east side recently uncovered a wallet, pictures, keys and coins that appear to be more than a half-century old, and he’s now hoping he can find the rightful owner.
Randy Dixon was walking along a trail above Foothill Drive close to 1900 South — a trail he had hiked countless times before — when he spotted the wallet embedded in the dirt on the side of an embankment.
“I think it must have been buried until this year,” Dixon said. “It just was kind of a coincidence that it turned up when it did.”
The wallet, though heavily worn through decades of Utah winters, offered some potentially vital clues. In it were several pictures, including one of a girl in a dress standing in front of what is believed to be the Los Angeles Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The wallet also contained a small calendar from Continental Bank that was marked “1959,” and some sort of school identification card for the now defunct Lincoln Junior High School. It was dated 1958.
Coins from the 1940s and 1950s, including a 1942 silver half dollar, were part of the discovery.
“Chances are probably pretty slim that someone could be found,” Dixon said. “I thought, ‘I’d love to find out who this belonged to.’”
Still, the wallet may have wound up in the right hands to trace its origins.
Dixon, who retired from the LDS Church History Museum, has friends who have mutual interests in history and artifacts and a knowledge of the area’s past.
He contacted Alan Morrell, who posted photos of the wallet and its contents to Facebook.
“When Randy told me that he’d found this, I thought, ‘Well, there’s a story there,’” Morrell said.
Morrell is hoping somebody will recognize one of the people in the photos or that one of the other clues will lead to the owner of the wallet.
“It is pretty remarkable it’s still in as good of shape as it is,” he said. “If we find this person, I’ll think it was meant to be.”
