I carved my first cathedral pickle out of the mud at Maine Prairie, California. I've spun numerous tales (all true) about my exploits at this ghost town, but I don't think I have ever told you why I started to dig bottles there.
I was a young lad of 15 ~ the pride of my father's eye. His only child. We spent time fishing, hunting, camping. On one summer evening Dad & I drove to the Dixon Boat Club to do some fishing. The striper run was on and we were out to catch as many as legal. We put in at the boat ramp. The tide was way out and we planned to fish the incoming tide. Making our way South Dad cursed the extra low water level. Dredging up river was silting everything in. Dad began to tell me about Maine Prairie. He said the town of Main Prairie was built just prior to the Civil War ~ a large shipping port which transferred grain to San Francisco from just about all of Northern California. When he was a young man he fished & hunted that area. Two Main Prairie grain warehouses still stood just down river from where the town was located. He had shot more then one green head Mallard trying to escape a pot hole just beyond. He told me that the warehouses burned in the 1930s. Soaking in all of this information, I leaned over the edge of the boat and watched the tule & mud go by. We continued down river with the slough banks seemingly touching either side of the boat. I saw a honey yellow square bottle & a clay handled jug laying in plain view. Dad slowed the boat & I brought both items on board. We had never seen bottles like these. I asked my father what Bitters meant. He told me that he knew of a bar bitters, but that was it. We spent several hours trolling off the sugar beet dump with the two bottles rolling around in the aft of the boat.
Several hours & no fish later we drove back with the rising tide. The area where I found the two bottles was well under water. One had to be at this exact location with a minus tide and the desire to find bottles. The stars had aligned. The bitters: a Bach & Meese Stomach Bitters / San Francisco ~ flat out beautiful. The Nassua Seltzers was equally great & maybe more interesting. I had never seen bottles like these. A sense of history ~ alluring to a boy of 15 ~ still works for a man of 66. Fifty years later, I'm still pursuing old glass.
So at the top of the story I mentioned carving a cathedral pickle from the mud. Pictured below is that aqua pickle 11.5†tall with a raw open pontil. Beautiful to say the least. I found it in the muddy East side of the slough.
I was a young lad of 15 ~ the pride of my father's eye. His only child. We spent time fishing, hunting, camping. On one summer evening Dad & I drove to the Dixon Boat Club to do some fishing. The striper run was on and we were out to catch as many as legal. We put in at the boat ramp. The tide was way out and we planned to fish the incoming tide. Making our way South Dad cursed the extra low water level. Dredging up river was silting everything in. Dad began to tell me about Maine Prairie. He said the town of Main Prairie was built just prior to the Civil War ~ a large shipping port which transferred grain to San Francisco from just about all of Northern California. When he was a young man he fished & hunted that area. Two Main Prairie grain warehouses still stood just down river from where the town was located. He had shot more then one green head Mallard trying to escape a pot hole just beyond. He told me that the warehouses burned in the 1930s. Soaking in all of this information, I leaned over the edge of the boat and watched the tule & mud go by. We continued down river with the slough banks seemingly touching either side of the boat. I saw a honey yellow square bottle & a clay handled jug laying in plain view. Dad slowed the boat & I brought both items on board. We had never seen bottles like these. I asked my father what Bitters meant. He told me that he knew of a bar bitters, but that was it. We spent several hours trolling off the sugar beet dump with the two bottles rolling around in the aft of the boat.
Several hours & no fish later we drove back with the rising tide. The area where I found the two bottles was well under water. One had to be at this exact location with a minus tide and the desire to find bottles. The stars had aligned. The bitters: a Bach & Meese Stomach Bitters / San Francisco ~ flat out beautiful. The Nassua Seltzers was equally great & maybe more interesting. I had never seen bottles like these. A sense of history ~ alluring to a boy of 15 ~ still works for a man of 66. Fifty years later, I'm still pursuing old glass.
So at the top of the story I mentioned carving a cathedral pickle from the mud. Pictured below is that aqua pickle 11.5†tall with a raw open pontil. Beautiful to say the least. I found it in the muddy East side of the slough.
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