Found in a High School Restroom: Cache of 1940s Wallets and Their Contents

Some people dig up time capsules from deep within the ground, learning details about a past time. But one plumber in Centralia, Illinois, stumbled upon 13 wallets and a potential unsolved theft from the 1940s in a women's restroom.

Pastor Seth Baltzell was demolishing the former Centralia High School, restoring it into an outreach center and church, when a plumber cut into a brass vent cover behind a toilet.

"When he did, a bunch of wallets fell out," Baltzell says.

The 38-year old Centralia native said the plumber threw them in a box, opened up the other vent covers, and found some additional items from the mid-to-late '40s. Inside the women's wallets, the pastor says they have found Missouri tax tokens, social security cards, circus tickets, love letters and pictures of men dressed in military garb. They even found a student pilot permit.

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