Sisters work to bring forgotten history to light
CONCORD TWP — Along a stretch of Seven Hills Road, two sisters are spending their summer uncovering and documenting a forgotten piece of history.
The sisters are working together but digging into Butler County’s past for two different reasons. For Ashley Nagle, 23, documenting artifacts from the forgotten town of Modoc City is part of her master’s thesis project in archaeology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
For Tia Nagle, 14, helping her sister dig, brush dirt from bits of glass and wooden buttons and work the wooden and mesh soil sifter will help her achieve her Girl Scout Silver Award.
It’s hard to imagine that an oil boom town blossomed, thrived and died in the space of two years along this wooded stretch of rural road. Fifteen years later, few remnants remained.
But, according to Ashley Nagle, a study of newspapers such as the Petroleum Center Daily Record and some work with ground-penetrating radar confirmed the location of the vanished town.
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