Mr. Blackwelder's Strange, Black Rock
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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You seek an altoids tin container, filled with swag. Park at the parking coordinates and you should have an interesting (and dry) short hike to the cache site. Clue is a total spoiler, so use it only if you have to.
The following was adapted from the book, "World War II - Hometowns and Home Front Heroes, Life-Experience Stories From the Carolina's Piedmont" Edited by Margaret G. Bigger (2003, A. Borough Books)
Oscar Blackwelder was one of Concord's town characters. He had spent his life as a professional prospector. And during World War II, his work was in the general vicinity of Robbins in Moore County, looking for more sources of talc, a mineral common to the area that was needed for the war effort.
"Oscar told my father and me whenever he found a stone he couldn't identify, he would mail it to the Vanderbilt University lab in a cigar box. They would send him a postcard with its name and a brief description of its uses. Such had been the situation one day around Robbins. He found a vein of black rock running across a creek branch out in the country, so he shipped a chunk to the lab. This time he didn't receive the usual reply.
'They didn't send me a postcard', he said, 'They came to see me.'
He explained further, 'A couple of fellows from the lab were waiting for me at the hotel one evening, when I came in from the field. They showed me the black rock and said, 'Mr. Blackwelder, do you remember where you found this rock?'
The next morning, they all went out to the site. After Oscar showed them the site, they told him to 'mine it, weigh it, and ship it to this address.'
Oscar asked, 'How much do you want me to ship?'
The reply was, 'All of it, down to the tickness of a butcher knife blade, if the vein tapers that thin.'
Just before they left, one of the asked, 'Mr. Blackwelder, do you have a pistol?' When he said yes, they told him he ought to start carrying it.
'I'll need a permit', Oscar reminded them. 'Don't worry, we'll take care of it.' They replied.
About 10 days later, Oscar received a big manila envelope from the Deapartment of Interior, United States Government, Washington D.C. 'The first thing I noticed was a big gold seal at the bottom of the letter. It gave me permission to carry a pistol and what would happen to anybody if they interfered with my business. Very impressive!'
As his work progressed, word got around that Oscar was carrying a pistol, so it wasn't long until the sheriff stopped by the dig. After a while, he said, 'Mr. Blackwelder, I see you are carrying a pistol.' Oscar interrupted him with 'Sheriff, I beleive you are a good man and I wouldn't want to see you get into any trouble, so before you go any further, I would advise you go and read that letter in the glove compartment of my car.'
The sheriff was gone for a while. Oscar said 'When he came back down the hill, I could see he was about two shades whiter.' All the sheriff said was, 'Blackwelder, do me a favor and forget I was even out here.'
Oscar said that one of the men from Vanderbilt lab paid him a visit a few weeks later to ask if he'd had any problems.
'No problems, but I'd like to know one thing,' Oscar said, 'just what in the heck is this stuff I've been mining?'
'It's called pitchblende'the guy said, 'some people think it can be used to make a powerful explosive.'
Pitchblende, Oscar later learned, is rich in uranium, and he had been mining the largest deposit ever found in the U.S. at that time. The pitchblende Oscar Blackwelder mined near Robbins, North Carolina, provided the majority of the uranium used in the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
FCBVYRE: nygbvqf gva va n synggrarq pvaqre oybpx ba gbc bs gur qnz nobhg svir srrg sebz gur sne raq, whfg cnfg gur jbbqra cbfg fgvpxvat bhg sebz gur gbc bs gur qnz