Hello, from LA - that's Los Angeles, not Louisiana

[5 gallon collector]

Once upon a time.....
Not new to the site, but not active until recently -- more time now, partly retired. Interest is in the bottled water industry of Calif and especially So Calif, trying to sort out which manufacturers made which bottles for whom and when -- don't ask me why. (It's not a secret, I just don't know.) Began collecting the 5-gallon bottles about 40 years ago, briefly, then took a 30+ year break (hate to use that word on this site), busy with family, career (silly excuses), the habit rekindled maybe 3-4 years ago. Interested in exchanging info re these big bottles - anyone else similarly foolish? Have not been digging -- but enjoy that sort of thing -- recognizing that no one has ever dug out a 5-gallon bottle - have they? Anyway, having fun reading all of your posts, will post some images, have some queries, will chime in from time to time, recognizing that I am ignorant about most of this stuff, but like to research, a different digging.
Love that glass.
And they all lived happily ever after. The END.

 

[nhpharm]

When I was a kid in rural New Hampshire, my parents were driving down a rural road and lying on the side of the road was a big glass 5 gallon spring water bottle with a roughly 4" hole cut in the back of it. They grabbed it and we filled it (from the hole in the back) with seashells and it still resides in my parents house. That's the closest I've come to digging one...still puzzles me to this day how it ended up there and why someone (very expertly) cut a hole in the back.

 

[5 gallon collector]

Yup, seems odd to have left it there. Perhaps simply did not want it, no local thrift store, and figured that if left in a public spot, might be picked up and used -- as it was -- rather than throwing it out. Things do find their way to odd places. Some years ago I was hiking on a ridge above a remote valley in the White Mountains, musing that I was very possibly the first human to have set foot there, when I came across a kitchen colander. Just a colander, sitting there, middle of nowhere. Stupendously out-of-place.
Bottles with such ~4" holes are not uncommon -- I suppose for access, to store objects larger than will fit through that ~1" spout - and get them out again. I imagine a bottle full of pennies, dangerously heavy, and now wanting to empty it. Glass pinata! How the holes are cut I have no idea -- must be a device purpose built.
Closest I came to finding one was finding pieces on a dry lakebed.

 

[rickmarbles]

"I placed a jar in Tennessee
And round it was, upon a hill"