Went out this Sunday with my 6 year old son to dig a promising spot I probed out last week. Ended up being one of the more colorful privies I have dug. Privy was roughly 3' wide x 6' long x 6' deep. Use layer was from about 3' to about 6', but the top 2' of that dated to around 1900-1910, and the bottom 1' was from the mid 1880's...I suspect they dug out an old privy and reused it. Nonetheless, it was loaded with bottles and capped with an old iron bed headboard. In the top 2' we dug at least 50 slick whiskey flasks (all but a pumpkinseed went back in the privy), 3 local pharmacy bottles, 2 local hutch sodas, a Galveston beer bottle, a Houston beer bottle, a Peterman's Bed Bug Destroyer (a clear script variation that I have never seen before...), several large perfume bottles, a bunch of Hoyt's cologne bottles, two Kilmer's U&O bottles, a pile of little cobalt blue ointment pots, two Gonorrhea cure bottles (Evan's Big G and A No. 1"), a D.D.D. Remedy for Eczema, and a few other odds and ends. In the bottom 1' (1880's stuff) we found next to nothing except an IXL Chill Cure bottle from M.D. Conklin, who was the predecessor of the Houston Drug Co. (I believe he was selling this stuff from around 1883-1895). Extremely excited about this bottle.
Based on the cross section of stuff I'm suspecting that for a time at least this place might have been a brothel.
Dug a second little barrel privy to cap off the day and came up with a nice L&W Hostetters.
The D.D.D. bottle is a bit of a puzzle. I am sure most everyone is familiar with the common bottles that are embossed in big letters "D.D.D." This stands for Decatur D. Dennis, who was a doctor who is listed in both the Galveston, Texas directory in 1899 and also appears to be listed in the Saint Louis, Missouri 1899 directory as a manufacturing chemist. The bottles that are embossed simply D.D.D. are from Chicago, when Decatur moved there in 1900 and sold the company. The company sold the D.D.D. medicine until the 1950's. In 1901 he was back in Texas and lived his life out here selling traps, working as a doctor, etc (he held at least a few patents as well). I have never seen this version of the D.D.D. bottles before and have to imagine that it is from when he was living in Galveston and presumably peddling his medicine here. Anyone ever seen this version of the D.D.D. bottles?
Based on the cross section of stuff I'm suspecting that for a time at least this place might have been a brothel.
Dug a second little barrel privy to cap off the day and came up with a nice L&W Hostetters.
The D.D.D. bottle is a bit of a puzzle. I am sure most everyone is familiar with the common bottles that are embossed in big letters "D.D.D." This stands for Decatur D. Dennis, who was a doctor who is listed in both the Galveston, Texas directory in 1899 and also appears to be listed in the Saint Louis, Missouri 1899 directory as a manufacturing chemist. The bottles that are embossed simply D.D.D. are from Chicago, when Decatur moved there in 1900 and sold the company. The company sold the D.D.D. medicine until the 1950's. In 1901 he was back in Texas and lived his life out here selling traps, working as a doctor, etc (he held at least a few patents as well). I have never seen this version of the D.D.D. bottles before and have to imagine that it is from when he was living in Galveston and presumably peddling his medicine here. Anyone ever seen this version of the D.D.D. bottles?