City of Harrisburg raising cash by auctioning Wild West treasures

The cash-strapped city of Harrisburg, Pa., is selling off thousands of historic artifacts to raise money to pay off more than $300 million in debt.

The Wild West auction includes about 8,000 items that would make any history buff salivate. Objects up for grabs include Buffalo Bill’s pipe, an arrest warrant for Jesse James and a letter penned by Billy the Kid. There are also items belonging to former presidents George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson.

The capital of Pennsylvania is in desperate need of cash. Its troubled finances stretch back more than a decade, when the city tried to make some money by rebuilding a municipal incinerator in order to take in trash from nearby towns. That investment went bad and spiraled into millions of dollars of debt.

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In 2011, the city tried unsuccessfully to file for bankruptcy. Harrisburg is now under state receivership and is still trying to pay off that trash incinerator debt. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Harrisburg in spring and accused officials of misleading the public about the city’s financial mess.

Now, Harrisburg is resorting to selling off its vast collection of historic gems collected by former Mayor Stephen Reed.

Reed imagined opening museums filled with western treasures to attract tourists and their money to Harrisburg. To fulfill that vision, he spent millions of public money to scoop up thousands of artifacts. But the plan got derailed, the museums never opened and the acquisitions were mothballed away in storage.

Auctioneer Joanne Grant told the Morning Call, a newspaper in Allentown, Pa., that nearly 7,000 had signed up to bid online at www.proxibid.com. Many more are expected to poke their heads into a warehouse and bid in person. The sale ends Sunday.

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