A Doorway for Your Imagination / Why is the Floor Like This?

A Doorway for Your Imagination, also, Why is the Floor Like This?. . A Doorway for Your Imagination Christopher Bechtler's coining shop was a busy place during the 1830s. Every day, miners arrived to bring in raw gold or pick up their newly minted coins. , Although we know that Bechtler owned this property, the exact location of his Mint is a mystery. Ever since Bechtler moved to Rutherfordton in 1838, his property has been farmed, logged and bulldozed. Archaeologists who looked for the Mint found only some old bricks and a handful of cut nails scattered across this ridge. , So put your imagination to work: listen for the footsteps of all those miners coming and going. , Why is the Floor Like This? When Thomas Walton was nine years old, he paid a visit to Bechtler's Mint. Sixty years later he described this visit and his curiosity about the Mint's unusual floor. It was, he said, “a tongued and grooved floor, crossed at right angles with strips about 2½ inches wide, slightly raised about the main floor” (The Morganton Herald, 1894). , Bechtler told Walton that gold particles often escaped when he was weighing, melting or coining gold. Miners departing across a smooth floor might carry away gold dust on their boots. Walking across the raised slats scraped off the gold dust, which fell through onto the solid floor so that Bechtler could sweep it up and use it. , When you stand on this strange floor, scrape your feet just a little to get that gold dust off!