HOT SPRINGS — Police in Hot Springs have evacuated about 20 homes after a man mistook a Civil War-era land mine for a cannonball and took it home.
Police say as of about 4 p.m. Thursday that the U.S. Air Force Bomb Squad was looking for a place to explode the ordinance.
Police spokesman Cpl. Kirk Zaner said a Hot Springs man dug up what he thought was a cannonball near Danville. The man put the 32-pound land mine in the back of his pickup and drove about 65 miles home.
After researching pictures of Civil War-era weapons, the man called police to say he thought he found a land mine with a pressure sensor fuse. Zanier said the Air Force bomb squad X-rayed the device and found what could be explosives inside.