Police Evacuate 20 Arkansas Residences After Man Brings Home Land Mine

The land mine was from the Civil War era

Police in Hot Springs, Arkansas, have evacuated about 20 homes after a man mistook a Civil War-era land mine for a cannonball and took it home.

On Thursday afternoon the U.S. Air Force Bomb Squad was looking for a place to explode the ordnance.

Police spokesman Cpl. Kirk Zaner said a Hot Springs man dug up what he thought was a cannonball near Danville. The man put the 32-pound land mine in the back of his pickup and drove about 65 miles home.

After researching pictures of Civil War-era weapons, the man called police to say he thought he found a land mine with a pressure sensor fuse. Zanier says the Air Force bomb squad X-rayed the device and found what could be explosives inside. 

Copyright The Associated Press
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