Gripping Tales of Old Birmingham!!!

Old revolver discovered in Birmingham finance office

BENJAMIN NIOLET
News staff writer

Birmingham's Finance Department once packed heat.

In the deep of Birmingham's Finance Department, employees discovered an item that has little place in modern municipal finance a revolver.

The empty, six-shot, .38-caliber Colt sat in a folded envelope behind a box on top of a file cabinet, said Finance Director Sade Olanipekun.

Police and city employees said they believe the weapon, similar to a 1930s Police Positive model, was the finance department's insurance policy, one they kept in a safe in case some villain tried to get his hands on the city's bankroll. [...]

Cool. This department is four floors downstairs from where I'm sitting right now.

Interesting how times have changes, eh? I will say that it's a shame they want to destroy the gun--it could be deactivated and be a neat part of a display at the police department or at the Archives. Oh, well.

(By the way, lest any of you think this has been hidden and moldering away for 72 years in the same place, the Finance Department moved into its current space only a few years ago--when the department moved, so did the revolver and the envelope. My guess is that when the department moved, someone opened up the envelope, figured it was best to shut the heck up and then stashed it away for someone else to find...and get blamed.)
posted by Terry at 11:23:00 AM