by Miranda G. McLeod
Staff Writer
This week’s workspace is a time machine back to the Civil War era. County Judge Gary Flower’s chambers and office are laced with books, artillery and other artifacts he has found throughout the East Coast and Southern states. Flower began searching for and collecting artifacts with his father when he was six years old.
“After finding my first artifact, I was hooked,” said Flower.
He continues to make it a family affair when he sports his metal detector and tools. His identical twin sons, Win and Warner, 11, and daughter Cooper, 10, hunt for artifacts on weekends and recently sifted through dirt at the library construction site. “Little boys playing in the dirt, grow up to be big boys playing in the dirt. It’s fun to pass along,” said Flower. “It’s exciting to find artifacts,” he said, “but it takes work. It takes a long time because the artifacts are often big and deep in the ground. But all that hard work pales in comparison to the excitement of finding something that was last touched by someone who fired it in anger 145 years ago.” Flower has been in his office since 2000. His chambers once belonged to his mentor Judge Alfred Washington.