Lost neighborhood? or what?

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Ashbringer

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Walking the tracks one day I saw backhoes digging out the sides of the the train tracks because of a fire in a huge old upholstery building.
Looking down I saw something sticking out of the ground I wasn't quite sure what it was picked it up and it just happened to be an intact bottle, a small bottle. Looking closer I realized it was a small medicine bottle. walking further down the tracks I saw where the backhoe had dug out the piles of dirt I found the first bottle in. There were many many more bottles and jars and pottery about 10 ft from the top of the hill that they were digging. A distinct layer.
Maybe the River company had purchased homes near where they wanted to take the tracks and paid the people to just leave everything in their homes and go.
China medicine bottles glass syringes boots. Mason jars lids makeup containers pieces of porcelain dolls the list goes on.
Does anybody have any ideas or have ever heard of anything like this your railroad tracks I'm in Western New York. And right down the tracks about an eighth of a mile there's a bridge that goes over the water and two signs one on each side of the tracks says 1920 on Plaques.
I have a few hundred complete bottles. Blue pinkish and clear.
I'm thinking 1930s about. Some older.
 

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MaxiLou47

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Wow! Though I don't know anything about the history to tell you that is an amazing haul! I can't imagine the excitement of discovering those, I'm jealous!
 

CanadianBottles

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Looks like you've got a good spot! Railroad tracks were often used for dumping garbage back in the day, either formally or informally. That's what you've found, it's a dump site rather than the site of houses that were bulldozed. When you do encounter a neighbourhood which was demolished all at once there usually isn't much obvious visual record of it, at most filled-in foundations and occasional scattered items, but not a rich layer like that. It's a surprisingly wide age range from around the 1900s to the 1980s, though I imagine that Pepsi bottle is unrelated to the others, which are a more typical age range of the first few decades of the 20th century.
 

Ashbringer

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Looks like you've got a good spot! Railroad tracks were often used for dumping garbage back in the day, either formally or informally. That's what you've found, it's a dump site rather than the site of houses that were bulldozed. When you do encounter a neighbourhood which was demolished all at once there usually isn't much obvious visual record of it, at most filled-in foundations and occasional scattered items, but not a rich layer like that. It's a surprisingly wide age range from around the 1900s to the 1980s, though I imagine that Pepsi bottle is unrelated to the others, which are a more typical age range of the first few decades of the 20th century.
Correct the Pepsi bottle was a gift.
The area is now a light industrial road. Companies going back to 1880s. There are about 20 homes there now butting UpTo the hill leading to the tracks.
I'm finding glass bottles and what seems to be possably the inside dies for making some bottles.
Have more to catalogue then I'll have more answers. Thanks for an idea I never considered.

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CanadianBottles

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Correct the Pepsi bottle was a gift.
The area is now a light industrial road. Companies going back to 1880s. There are about 20 homes there now butting UpTo the hill leading to the tracks.
I'm finding glass bottles and what seems to be possably the inside dies for making some bottles.
Have more to catalogue then I'll have more answers. Thanks for an idea I never considered.

Sent from my LM-K500 using Tapatalk
What do you mean by the inside dies for making bottles? Like bottle molds? I'd be very curious to see those, that's an incredibly rare find if that's what they are.
 

Ashbringer

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What do you mean by the inside dies for making bottles? Like bottle molds? I'd be very curious to see those, that's an incredibly rare find if that's what they are.
Yes molds that was the word I was looking for at first I found them near where I found some bottles all the same size shape and I just grabbed them cuz I thought okay these these are weird they shouldn't be here.
Always a possibility they are something else but not 11 or 12 different ones some the same but they just look like the inside of some of these bottles. I will make a note when I get home from work in the morning to take some pictures of those molds.
Give me some of my research so far do you know that downtown Jamestown the guys who got a patent for an upgrade on mason jar lids I believe the ones with a little groove in the top to hold the metal wire he lived in Jamestown for a long time and had a business and I found some of those lids quite a few actually.
Thinking to myself it must have been a last bottle and jar manufacturer right here cuz it was many there was still so many some broken I'm home but all of them are cool and I collect all the pieces I can find when writing on them.

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Ashbringer

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Yes molds that was the word I was looking for at first I found them near where I found some bottles all the same size shape and I just grabbed them cuz I thought okay these these are weird they shouldn't be here.
Always a possibility they are something else but not 11 or 12 different ones some the same but they just look like the inside of some of these bottles. I will make a note when I get home from work in the morning to take some pictures of those molds.
Give me some of my research so far do you know that downtown Jamestown the guys who got a patent for an upgrade on mason jar lids I believe the ones with a little groove in the top to hold the metal wire he lived in Jamestown for a long time and had a business and I found some of those lids quite a few actually.
Thinking to myself it must have been a last bottle and jar manufacturer right here cuz it was many there was still so many some broken I'm home but all of them are cool and I collect all the pieces I can find when writing on them.

Sent from my LM-K500 using Tapatalk
It's an interesting story I had access to this very old furniture upholstery building that have been abandoned for 20-25 years and falling apart Forest caving in still most of the furniture in there it was crazy some girls two little girls 11 and 12 walked in one day decided to play with fire. tragedy
After spending a year going in and out of this building with the owner and it burned down and I decided to walk by a couple times to see the damage one day when I was walking by I see a dump truck backing down the tracks and about 25 piles of rubble and Rock didn't know what was going on realized they were dredging and as I was walking by them sticking out and I knew they were old right away.
I said no I'm hooked trying to put together a picture of this area back in the day and Lucille Ball is there where these bottles came from what they were for even the syringe the needle a couple signs for pouch of chewing tobacco.

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ROBBYBOBBY64

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Sadly it is not legal to walk railroads in tn. At least that's what I've found. Its so tempting because the railroad is on the 1890s sanborne map
No legal in NJ either. I can go upstate. There is a dirt road that people use to access the Hudson River. It runs between the north and south bound lines. Very odd, you can drive for miles. My friends property is right along the tracks.
ROBBYBOBBY64.
 

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