10ft Dig and All By Yourself/What to do?

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GRIT

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Hi! New member here. I'm so thankful I have found a place like this. Seems I'm going to need help and or advice in the future.

I live in East Texas. Lindale to be exact. I have some property my wife and I bought about 6 years ago. Seems the history goes quite a ways back from what we can find out about it. The town was founded in 1871, but the first settlers arrived around 1836. I think this holds true for our property, but can't be for certain.

This past summer I noticed a depression near the front entrance. I never though much about it. It had bricks piled in it. But what struck my interest was there were glass jars sticking out of the sand. Out of curiosity I started removing brick after brick and jars start popping up everywhere. It took a lot of effort to get most of the debris removed from the hole. There was a huge foundation footing? in the hole that I had to literally rolled out it was so heavy.

But after getting most of the debris out of the hole, I started finding bottles. Jars, medicine bottles, ect.

Fast forward a ways and now I am at around the 10-11ft mark with no end in sight. I have stuck my 4ft probe into the bottom and it still drops down easily. I cut some stairs leading into the hole, but there's still quite a drop; especially since I continue to dig. I can no longer throw the dirt up and out of the hole. It is just too deep.

I don't know what to do at this point. Any suggestions?

I found another area last years as well. Just off the driveway. Not knowing anything was there at the time, I used my skid steer to remove some brush that leads down into a gully. That's how I found them. Bottles started popping up everywhere. I only dug into the dirt around 2-3ft at most, but the return was quite good.

Between the two dig sights, I have amassed around 400-500? estimated. There's old mixed in with newer bottles. Since I haven't reached the bottom of my deepest hole, I can't say how old these are going to get.

I think I have found a third sight, but have only pulled a few out of it. I don't think I have actually located the hole. Or maybe they were just thrown over there randomly. one of them was a Mrs. Stewarts Bluing bottle. Around 10-15 yrds from that is another possible sight. It has bricks stacked in a pile with brush and debris coving it. I haven't even got to it, yet.

Anyway, just thought I would introduce myself. Any ideas on how to dig this 10FT + hole without burying myself alive?
 

junkmansitch

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Sounds like you have some good spots to dig. I suggest when you start getting deeper than 4 feet have somebody with you for safety and use a 5 gal bucket and rope to haul dirt out of hole. Post some pics too, we love seeing action shots.
 

GRIT

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Sounds like you have some good spots to dig. I suggest when you start getting deeper than 4 feet have somebody with you for safety and use a 5 gal bucket and rope to haul dirt out of hole. Post some pics too, we love seeing action shots.

Thank you. Yes, I seem to have lucked out when it comes to bottles. I never even thought about digging for bottles when we moved here. I never even put settlers and bottles in the same sentence. I never even thought about the two and their correlation until I started finding glass.

I have some pics I took. I'm not real computer savvy, but I can try to post some. I know some of the photos aren't that great and lack detail or are just hard to see.

I guess I'm past the 4ft safety mark. I never have known when to quit. :eek: I just don't have many people that can come out and help me. I hate to ask my wife. When I go out, I'm out most of the day.

The hole is about 7-8ft in diameter. I never have found any boarders, as of yet. I think these East Texans built them out of wood. And if that's the case, well, I don't guess there will be any boarders?

Thanks for the reply!
 

Robby Raccoon

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It's possible you've found a filled-in well (possibly one that they stopped digging upon finding no water) or some sort of natural depression in the ground that people began throwing stuff in.
 

GRIT

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It's possible you've found a filled-in well (possibly one that they stopped digging upon finding no water) or some sort of natural depression in the ground that people began throwing stuff in.

Hi, Spirit Bear. I didn't think about that. I don't even think I have found the entire area. Seems the more I dig, the more I find myself digging into the wall. It gets wider as it gets deeper. I haven't figured out how that can happen. When I probe the wall above it, it's nothing but hard, solid clay.
 

Robby Raccoon

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Well, how about this one: in a near city, while construction was going on, it was discovered that an entire ravine had been filled in with trash from the mid-late 1800s. The ravine had been on maps, but, of course, no one today realised that because it had been filled to the top and covered over a century ago as it turned out to be an early city-dump! And now it's still underneath a new building-- never to be opened again, with bottles from the 1860s sitting down there intact. Imagine how much that annoys the local diggers. Hah hah.
 

hemihampton

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Sounds like a Well possibly, should be something for a wall though. Bricks or rocks or wood or something. I've seen big old wells here in Michigan from 1800's 6-8 feet wide but lined with rocks well1.jpg(pic below) I'd find a local bottle digger to help you. If I lived Closer I'd love to help you. Maybe put a Ad in here in Digging Partner section. Post some pics & good luck.
 

GRIT

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SB, it's funny you mention that little story. I have often thought about that and what a monumental task that would be to uncover. I remember checking a website once that had a list of old, forgotten dumps. My place wasn't on that list. But I also know dumps were around long before that list came to be.

To my knowledge, there has been four owners of this property. The original land owner (which owned a lot more land than I sit on today). But my property lies at one of the corners of where his original property was located. Then there was another family after him, but don't know the years he lived here. After that family was the family we bought it from. As far as I can tell, the land has not changed. We're out here in the country. I know the Caddo were out in this area as early as the 1500s, I believe. My neighbor has told me he used to find arrowheads sitting atop the garden when he was a kid.
 

GRIT

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Sounds like a Well possibly, should be something for a wall though. Bricks or rocks or wood or something. I've seen big old wells here in Michigan from 1800's 6-8 feet wide but lined with rocks View attachment 183963(pic below) I'd find a local bottle digger to help you. If I lived Closer I'd love to help you. Maybe put a Ad in here in Digging Partner section. Post some pics & good luck.

hemihampton, thanks for the pic. I wish I could find a boarder, but no such luck, yet.

How do you post pics on here using the forum software? I can usually figure it out, but not this time.
 

GRIT

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Ok, I think I have figured it out now. The pics aren't the greatest and they're pretty much all over the place because I took them on different days so it's not very organized.

20171209_110749_opt.jpg20171209_110807_opt.jpg20171209_110825_opt.jpg
 

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