going out for bottle hunt today

cant make the bikes out at all? would be awesome to see pics.
thats what you have to look old places like that, i found an old house back when i was a kid, and man there were tons of bottles back there, i still remember the old trash bag they were in with the rip, trash bag and glass lol, dont ask what they were thinking haha, we smashed some of em, and threw rocks at em, i know lol, but im not sure if there were anything worth value, problem not in that pile, but im sure there are better ones around there
its outta my way though, i'll have to go when im over there

get an old rack and do some racking, im sure theres a ton of leaves etc, you could see a little better, just do an area at a time, sounds like a cool spot

the dump would be a good start..might be able to find something good other than bottles!! dumps are great places to hunt. Sometimes they can be a pain because you have to dig through so much stuff.
Here's a a few links on privy digging (outhouses):
http://www.19thcenturybottlediggers.com/privylocatingdigging.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privy_digging

http://privymaster.org/

Ant's page is one of the better privy sites, but it seems to be down right now.

right hand side of this blog has quite a few posts about dumps and such:

http://privymaster.org/

Right now I'm in the midst of digging my first "next to creek area". The guy we spoke with said that before the foliage grows in this area, it's bottles as far as you can see and would be about 3pickup trucks full...needless to say, we've only found "newer" bottles (30's-40's) and some shards of older bottles.

His house sits at the site of an 1800's commons bldg and right next to it was the original hotel of this very small town. The town was later moved to where it is now, 2miles away.

We're digging between the guy's house and the hotel (only foundation is left, still pretty cool though). Most of it is tall grass (almost waist high), which I sickled down a cpl of weeks ago. Sadly, no bottles.

My theory is that he saw them on the creekbed that runs between his house and where we're digging and when the foliage came up from the spring thaw, the creek filled up and the bottles are all buried in the mud at the bottom of the creek.

My point is, we found an elderly couple and mentioned wanting to find a spot to dig and they got excited to let us dig there...

Outside of researching at the library/maps, asking people who lived here "way back" is a great way to find places to dig. Bit of what talking to someone and a bunch of research can unearth in the pics.

few pics of where he's letting us dig on his land.... bunkhouse is behind the hotel near a field opening. we found a dump that we can't get to yet because of all of the scrub brush, which we'll take care of with a chainsaw next time there. It's in the right location for the bunkhouse.

the pick with 3bldgs on left and one on right shows a house, the commons (where his house is now) and the hotel. the right side is the lumber store.

the other pic with the bicyclists shows the lumber store and the pic is taken from roughly the street next to the house there. The main road going through the town is now a 2 lane hwy....

as far as digging the spot you're at. I'd dig where the glass shards and the Crush bottle was found and work your way down. (deeper into the area where glass was found and down the pile.) Could take quite awhile to get through it all.
Friend of mine has been digging and detecting a dump near his house for the past year. And he goes out daily. Finds a ton of milk and soda bottles. He's also found a few hundred pounds of copper wire, jewelry and a nice haul of coins and he's still not even close to being done. Dumps can be very time consuming.

Ive had a lot of luck walking along creeks and looking for signs of old glass/pottery,etc just dig where glass is,Ive found it on sides of creeks.
Old locations are great! Happy Hunting!