The Pine River Heritage Museum has received an explosive gift.
Well, not really. It's actually empty. Monica Smith found the World War II-era bomb when she was cleaning up her 17-acre property this summer. Smith and her late husband purchased the land just south of Bayfield in 1978.
Tony Schrier, the society's treasurer, accepted the relic from Smith on July 21. After an olive drab paint job to return the bomb to its proper color, the bomb will be joining the military exhibit at the museum on Mill Street later this summer.
The bomb is now hollow and weighs about five pounds. Schrier estimated it weighed 250 pounds when it was loaded. No one knows how it ended up in Bayfield, but Schrier theorizes it might have been a test or practice bomb in Utah, where training took place during the war.
