30-year-old stash of beer and gum found in library's mystery section

Aug. 14 (UPI) -- A Washington state library's mystery section was found to contain a real-life enigma when removing a corner panel revealed a stash of beer and chewing gum from the 1980s.

The Walla Walla Public Library said employees have been performing renovations at the facility during the COVID-19 shutdown, and they recently removed a corner panel from the shelf housing the mystery book section and found a disintegrated paper bag containing five unopened cans of Hamm's beer and an opened back of Godzilla Heads gum.

Library officials said their research determined Godzilla Heads gum dates from the 1980s and the Hamm's beer cans don't include health warnings that were required from 1988 on, leading staff to believe the snack stash is more than 30 years old.

"It looked like somebody had just stashed it there and maybe thought they could get it later ... but there was no way to get it out," library director Erin Wells told CNN. "There were probably six beers that they bought and there was only five that we found so they might not have been thinking straight when they did it."

The City of Walla Walla said the "artifacts" were transferred "to another city facility."

"The abandoned relics now reside in the Sudbury Landfill," the city said.