Crews working on a new Greene County operations center building found something they did not expect.

The new Greene County Operations Center is nearly $5 million project.

It will house county maintenance, custodians, and general services like the print room and mail room. Crews started the excavation a few weeks ago, and in the process, they found an old hand-dug well, or cistern. It had been hidden under a parking lot, and they believe it's at least a hundred years old.

It's only about six or seven feet deep, but it does still have water in the bottom of it. Crews are draining that water away and building new drainage to keep water off of the site. The county has old maps of buildings on the site, including a marble company.

But it's still a surprise to find something like this.

"It's really neat to see those," said Kevin Barnes, Greene County Resource Management Director. "A lot of times, when we're walking around old buildings, we find the trash that they dumped into just fill it up when they were finished with the building, but it's need to find something that was actually used and still in place."

Excavation crews also found many artifacts on the site, including a Dingleldein's bottle and a Kirby bottle, both in great condition. Greene County Archives will keep the artifacts.

The well has now been torn out. The county operations are currently in the basement of the former commission building that is being taken over by juvenile justice, and in another building on Boonville that is being torn down. This building should be complete sometime the middle of next year.