182K during the Depression would be the equivalent to several million dollars today. Back in those days you could buy a nice house for 5k. I wonder where all that loot came from? One has to suspect it may have been illegal. Bootlegging, perhaps?
Ok, I just looked up some more details of the story, and here’s the deal: the house, during the depression, belonged to a wealthy Cleveland businessman by the name of Patrick Dunne. At that time, Cleveland was an important city and there were a lot of wealthy people there.
The envelopes that were found were marked with a return address of “P. Dunne News Agency.”
Notably, here’s how the court case turned out:
The contractor received 13.5% of the money, the 21 heirs of Dunne received the balance of the remaining money that wasn’t spent (or lost) by the homeowner. The homeowner didn’t receive any of the treasure trove.
In addition to the treasure trove, there was an additional $25,000 in money that the judge ruled should be split between the homeowner and the finder, but further ruled that the homeowner abandoned her claim to the money and that the contractor-finder should receive it all.
The homeowner is a mortgage broker. For what it is worth, she is bankrupt, she claims, because several of her properties tanked after the real estate bubble burst.