101 frights

Cistern is a distinct possibility.

One other would be:

A fat-bellied cast iron stove for heating or cooking.

A house I lived in up north had a similar set up. There was a concrete chamber at the foot of the original unit so, during a vicious blizzard, you could dump the old ash into the chamber below and reload wood without having to go out into the cold.

The scratches, therefore would be from the shovel or whatever tool was periodically used to empty the cooled ash refuse from the chamber.

One more possibility, that I have actually seen in real life.

The stove idea would also account, possibly, for the bones.

If it was too cold to clean the stove properly, for days on end, the residents would also need a place to store the remains of meals and other items until they could dispose of them.

Hell, one winter in Nebraska, 1975 I believe, I lived in a house that was so snowed under we literally opened the door one morning to a wall of snow.

The whole damn house was buried. We had to use shovels to dig a tunnel out, placing the snow we moved in a bathtub to drain. It was FIERCE.

I'd rather deal with the weather in Florida during hurricane season than return to that.

you win the prize :thumbsup (there is no prize, sorry)

Turns out it was a cistern but why it was built over and not filled in is the mystery. We went down into the hole and let me tell you it was creepy. Armed with a shovel, I started to dig around and found the concrete floor to be 1-2 inches thick. After breaking through that layer, I continued to dig about 2ft down but found nothing out of the ordinary. At this point I began to worry about collapse and we gave up. The conclusion I am coming to it the pit was possibly used for alcohol storage during prohibition or "hooker storage" :)

I have left a few items in the hole for the next explorer which are sure to get a rise out of them.

And that concluded the journey to the center of the pit

What kind of items did you leave behind? :1orglaugh

Looks like a good place to set up a hydro operation that yields roughly 1lb a month.... or your own indoor in ground pool/jacuzzi

haha.. thanks for hte final update.

thank god it was just htat..