Bottle dump location found!!!

ericp501

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Dirty Jerz
Very excited. I had a hunch about this area. Normally I metal detect, but I've been getting frustrated with the hobby trying to find good spots. I was detecting in our old town a few weeks ago along the creek and my foot slipped showing an old bottle in the dirt. I finally just went back to the location and really looked around down near the bottom of the hills closer to the creek. There is this weird flat area at the bottom of the creek drop off on one part of the bank. I started walking around and sure enough.. JACKPOT.. Old bottles everywhere. Lots of broken ones, clearly the old dump area as there was random metal junk sticking up and a lot of these weird black tubes probably 8" in diameter from 6" to 3 feet in length.. They were EVERYWHERE. But anyway I didn't even really do any digging. Just walked around collecting what I could find. I left a ton behind that had cracks in them, shame too cause some where old colored glass with raised lettering but broken. I found these in about 15mins in about a 5000sq/ft area. Trouble is the area is totally flat.. could be a pain to dig up. The craziest thing where these 2 old light bulbs about 20' apart from each other just sitting up on the dead leaves.
 

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Amazing how many bottles (usually the good ones) are broken but thin fragile light bulbs survive. I see it all the time. Those bulbs with the points are keepers. It looks like you're into WW1 to 1930s era from what I can see there.

Look for embossed milks, beers, sodas, poisons and anything unusual.
 
Amazing how many bottles (usually the good ones) are broken but thin fragile light bulbs survive. I see it all the time. Those bulbs with the points are keepers. It looks like you're into WW1 to 1930s era from what I can see there.

Look for embossed milks, beers, sodas, poisons and anything unusual.


There is a ton of potential at this site, its at the back end of what used to be a farm field and is now a large open park. This spot is right off Main st. in our town which was incorporated in 1860, but has a number of houses from the late 1700s. The main part of the town which is only 1 mile away from this location was actually formed in the 1680s!

The area I'm finding this stuff in is HUGE. This could just be the tip of the iceberg.. I'll have to start digging into the side of the hills and see if I can find some of the really old stuff that I'm sure is buried in that area.
 
It's true...

...one man's trash is another man's treasure. I suppose some day somebody will be digging through our trash finding treasures.

I don't know anything about bottles, really, but I think those old light bulbs are COOL!

Congrats on some very interesting finds.
 
Went back today and did a bit of digging. There are bottles EVERYWHERE and this spot def goes back earlier than the 30s. One bottle I located with a date from 1877-1903. Not sure what the tin lid thing is.. And I think that leather piece is from an old shoe, and from what I researched my old town used to be known for all the shoemakers. Historic aerials from 1876 has a number of shoe makers shops on main st. which is only 500 yards from the dump site.
 

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That aqua corker bottle you just posted is a Kilmer's Swamp Root Kidney Liver & Bladder Cure and dates late 1890s to early 1900s. After 1906 or so The Pure Food and Drug Act pretty much disalowed the word "cure" on these "medicines" and was replaced with "remedy". Some of these actually had a kidney shape embossed in the glass. None are rare but they are fun to find. You're into some age there now.
http://www.antiquemedicines.com/Kilmer/Kilmer.htm
 

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The broken brown one is a fernberger whiskey bottle from Philadelphia. 1877-1902. The area I'm in is really huge. I haven't even walked all of it. I have a feeling if I walk further along the creek which is actually closer to town, I'll be able to find older bottles. My theory being this was likely the dump area for a very long time, as they dumped over time they would have been forced to move further and further down the creek as piles got bigger. If I walk all the way down where the old dirt road enterencr used to be I may be standing at the earliest years of the dump.
 
This is Amazing! What were those weird black tubes you mentioned? Old cast iron sewer pipes? let us know....Anyway, definitely keep this thread active and update us..very old and curious...You gotta keep hitting that location before the Plants start growing this Spring...I wonder if those old lightbulbs floated out of another dump area upstream?...especially if you are hunting on the outside curve of a creek/river bend?
 
This is Amazing! What were those weird black tubes you mentioned? Old cast iron sewer pipes? let us know....Anyway, definitely keep this thread active and update us..very old and curious...You gotta keep hitting that location before the Plants start growing this Spring...I wonder if those old lightbulbs floated out of another dump area upstream?...especially if you are hunting on the outside curve of a creek/river bend?


I'll have to get pictures of these tubes next time. There are literally thousands of them. So the area has two main features, tall dirt drop offs or cliffs that go right down to the creek. There's probably 200 yards of shoreline like this. That's where all these tubes are, the dirt drop off is very steep, almost cliff like about 15' high. Lots of trees and roots so easy enough to maneuver. The tubes are all over these cliffs and go at least 2' deep into the dirt (that's the deepest I've tunneled in so far. Only pulled a old gingerale bottle there. The other spot is at the base of these drop offs. Normally the drop offs always lead right down into water, but this spot is big and flat, very close to the water and I'm sure it floods frequently. Which is why I think so many of these old bottles are on the surface. I'll post some google earth and historic photos of the area shortly, and will grab more pics of the area next time I go back.
 
The one photo shows the area I believe to have been used as a dump site for our town for at least the last 200 years.

The photo with the different color lines represent the dropoff - green line; The old dirt road that used to lead back to the creek from town - yellow; The area with all the steep dropoffs and thousands of tubes - blue; And the area where I found all the bottles on the ground - Red.

The historic photo is from 1940 and clearly shows a road leading back toward the creek. The old atlas map is from 1876 and shows the town is clearly already well developed and even has a train stop running through it.

I honestly don't even think I'm in the best part yet. I really think the older stuff is going to be further away from the creek and closer to town, where the creek feeds into the swampy marsh area.
 

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Very interesting! We have a former town dump near our area that has been hit hard by bottlediggers (myself included) since the '70s when bottle collecting really took off. The place is so full of holes and ridges from digging that it resembles the craters on the moon and is hard to walk in anymore. It slopes downhill to a rather large blackwater pond. Some parts have been excavated 8 feet deep and you can see that the dump was burned several times through the years, lots of melted glass.

Keep hitting that place - it should yield some nice stuff.
 
Nice discovery, a different way of detecting. All visual. can be very gratifying or frustrating when you find a keeper but its broke.

I remember back in the 80's stumbling upon a site, and had carried bagfuls of bottles out of there. Several trips. I think I even took pillowcases because the bags (even doubled up) were breaking from the weight.

Thought of going back there now that we have Sampson's rather than the "gator digger" I was probably using back then.Who knows what lies deeper.
 
hey if you ever get into flint knapping, (check out the primitive pathways youtube channel for it), you can use some of those broken bottles, especially the ones with color, to make some wicked arrow heads!
 
Finally walked through the site again and went all along the ridge. All I can say is HUGE!!! if you look at my previous post its the whole length of the yellow line. The bottles are absolutely everywhere.. Its got to be some 600' in length of just bottles rolling down the hill into the creek. As I've mentioned before the area is from 1700s so I'm sure if I dug down I'd find some really really gold old ones. Just did a quick walk through and had 5 ticks on me tho.. so gotta put on some spray next time.

OH.. and a lot of the old bottle were melted and flat, whats that about?
 
Went back today and did a bit of digging. There are bottles EVERYWHERE and this spot def goes back earlier than the 30s. One bottle I located with a date from 1877-1903. Not sure what the tin lid thing is.. And I think that leather piece is from an old shoe, and from what I researched my old town used to be known for all the shoemakers. Historic aerials from 1876 has a number of shoe makers shops on main st. which is only 500 yards from the dump site.

The broken liver medicine is from Binghamton,n.y. near where I grew up. Snake oil I'm sure.:(
 
Awesome awesome awesome!! I too have been fascinated with bottle more and more lately and think there is potential for a creek spot in my home town! Saturday I will be detecting the field again above this spot as
I've found an old corn knife machete and a World War One horstman butoun milatary related I've took a peak in the creek it appears to have potential lots of trash in the area!!! ANYHOW CONGRATS!! Gonna be some amazing digs!!!!
Happy Hunting!!


MetalHead
 
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