Shane Ricks has uncovered a lot of buried history over eight years of working on road projects across Colorado — fossils, a 1920s-era car, an old pistol and even human remains.

“It’s always cool finding stuff,” he said. “I’m still waiting to find a suitcase of money.”

But the excavator operator for Zak Dirt hasn’t ever found anything quite like the historic item he happened upon while working on the Heart Improvement Plan (HIP) Streets project, in downtown Loveland. Last month, while digging a trench for a water line underneath the intersection at Fourth Street and Lincoln Avenue, his excavator bumped against something he knew wasn’t just an ordinary obstruction.

“You get a weird feeling about certain things,” he said. “I’ve been doing this a decent amount of time, and I can feel the di

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