News-Record.com

Despite urban sprawl, mysteries remain to be found in patches of woods that survive in Greensboro. The News & Record recently reported on Sunday walkers who found in woods in the New Irving Park area a grave stone with the name Amos Jones, 1931-37. Checks of register of deeds birth and death records and old newspaper birth notices and obituaries from those years yielded no clues. Amos Jones remains unknown.

Here's a new mystery. Jim Farley, a retired businessman turned urban explorer in southwest Greensboro, recently found the ruins of a concrete wall in a thickly wooded, hard-to-reach area off the west side of South Holden Road, below Smith High School.

He took a photo and showed it to Julie Curry, who directs the county's historic preservation program. Stumped, she forwarded the photo to the newspaper to see what we knew.

We knew nothing.

A call went out to Eddie Styers, who has lived in the Pinecroft Road area since he was nine years and long before there was ever a South Holden Road.

"If there's anything around here I haven't seen, I'd be surprised," he said.

Shown the photo, he was suprised. He had no clue as to what it was.

His curiousity churning, he rode to South Holden. The decent down to the wooded area was too steep for him to try, but he knew a crek that he knew as Rocky Branch as a boy ran through the woods at that location and under South Holden.

He recalled a bridge standing at the spot that had taken old Osborne Road over Rocky Branch. He is convinced the wall held up one side of the now vanished bridge.

South Holden, built in late 1950s to early 1960s, follows the path of old Osborne Road. Pastures of Lindley W. Osborne's farm occupied both sides of the road. The late philanthropist Joseph Bryan had a farm he used for weekend get aways close by. Bryan also had a skeet club range where Smith High stands.

The old Osborne and Bryan farms are now covered with houses, apartments and commercial developments, with more to come.

Styers said confirmation that the ruins are a bridge wall might be possible though the Osborne family. Two of Lindley Osborne's great grandsons, twins Dwight and David Osborne, remain in Greensboro. In fact, Styers said, "I think David works up at the newspaper."

He sure does. David Osborne has been at the paper more than 40 years and is phone systems administator. He grew up on a section of his great-grandfather's farm.

When he looked at the photo, he immediately agreed with Styers. Although years have passed since he walked the creek, he's positive the brick wall held up the old Osborne Road bridge.

So, what does a decript wall lost in the wood amount to in the scheme of things. You have to be someone like Jim Farley and Eddie Styers to understand the significance. They've witnessed humongous changes to Greensboro's landscapes. Spotting a scarce reminder of a bygone time thrills them.

But Farley is a skeptic. He's not convinced it's a bridge wall. He can find no signs of an old road bed. He thinks it might be a dam that held up a farm pond.

He didn't know Joe Bryan had a skeet club in the area, but he says that fact explains all the clay pigeons he has found in the woods south of the high school.

"It's fun to find old things and to get the feel of what the community was like once," he says "We need to safeguard what we can."