Oneonta Resident Finds Treasure In National Treasure Hunt

Do people actually find treasure in treasure hunts nowadays? One Oneonta man just became the third winner of the Great U.S. Treasure Hunt.

The Great U.S. Treasure Hunt is a nationwide hunt for items hidden somewhere in the 49 continental United States. Each item can be found by decoding a message in one of four chapters in the e-book 'The Great U.S. Treasure Hunt' sold on Amazon. Oneonta resident Kristian House cracked one of the four codes detailing the exact location of a Hermes Badge. By grabbing this badge, he earned $10,000.

House told WKTV that he looked for hints in the actual story and cracked the code:

"There seemed to be hints in the story itself that led me to choose the method that I did, and from there I just started looking for the pattern, and once I found it the things kind of fell into place," he said.

House deciphered this code hidden in Chapter one of the book. "The actual breakdown was Tri-slide, Lions, Nampa, Hermes Badge."

Get our free mobile app

That message brought him on a trip to Boise Idaho to Lions Park.

House traveled from his home in Oneonta, New York, just down the road from the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, to Boise, Idaho, where he rented a car and headed over to Lions Park in nearby Nampa. To his surprise, he found dozens of families making use of the park in mild temperatures in the 50s; House's own neighborhood back in central New York is currently covered in snow. Not wanting to seem like some "creepy guy hanging around a playground," as he put it, he decided to grab some lunch and come back a few hours later."

Once House returned, he ran his hand under the lip of the central slide, and felt the duct tape immediately. He peeled it off, revealing the small tin badge featuring Hermes, the Greek messenger of the gods. The message was "you just won $10,000."

Also, fun fact- Kristian House is a crossword puzzle constructor with dozens of published puzzles at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

The final item to be found in this treasure hunt is hidden somewhere east of the Mississippi and south of the 40th parallel. Organizers are hoping to add another 6 treasures to this year’s hunt.