THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY

[SODAPOPBOB]

And here's the Carboy shard and the zinc cap I found yesterday. I don't know what the crusty stuff is on the glass and cap, but I know it's permanent and won't scrape off ...

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

P.S. I think it's ironic that it was a clear, warm day yesterday while exploring the Hatfield site but is pouring rain today. I wonder if I conjured up Hatfield's rainmaking ghost? []

 

[Photon440]

I don't log on here too often, but check every few weeks just to see what Sodapopbob has been up to. This has been a great story, or adventure. Thanks for the history lesson and letting us in on a bit of the excitement you've been having.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Ed / Photon440 Thank you for the kind words - they made my day! It just so happens today is the day that a couple of friends and I are renting a boat at the lake and plan to do some serious exploring along the north shore. I'm hoping we find some 'keepers' that won't get away. I will report back later and let you know what we find ...

 

[cowseatmaize]

Must be a different North Shore. Ours is still kinda , well, frigid. [] but []! I'll cross my toes for you too.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

We went to the lake yesterday, rented a boat, and explored the north shore area for about five hours. There are indeed a lot of bottles to be found, but unfortunately the majority of those laying on the surface of the lake bed are beer bottles from the 1970s and 1980s. With so many beer bottles laying around it is clearly evident that fisherman drink a lot more beer than they do soda pop. Because of the silt that has built up over the years, it stands to reason that most of the older bottles are still buried in the mud and hidden from view with no way to find them except by poking around and digging for the next hundred years. You will recall from my earlier post that the dam was completed by 1913 and only half-full in 1916 when Charles Hatfield did his rain making thing. And even though Hatfield filled the lake to overflowing, because it is a reservoir used for San Diego drinking water it was drained off and back to half-full again by the 1920s. Based on what the rangers told us, the silt buildup varies in depth from about three feet around the edges to about sixty feet at the base of the dam. Which means that poking and digging for hidden bottles would be an almost impossible task to accomplish.



But this doesn't mean we didn't find any older soda bottles, because we did. At one point we were cruising in the boat close to the shore when I spotted the neck of a bottle sticking out of the mud near the lake's current waterline. When we drifted in for a closer look I could see a bit of acl on the bottle's neck and knew immediately that it was some type of soda bottle. Because it was our first significant find of the day, I held my breath in the hope it was still intact and not broken. Moments later, and to my extreme delight, I extracted the "Wilshire Club" bottle pictured below. It's an Owens-Illinois bottle and dated 1947. Because of where it was found it has no doubt been under water these past 67 years and in pretty good shape considering. I don't know very much about the Wilshire Club Bottling Company other than it was located in Los Angeles and that the brand name was registered in 1933. I know they produced some earlier paper label bottles but not sure when their first acl was produced. In any event, it is a bottle that I did not have and consider it a true 'keeper.'

Another thing I found earlier in the day was a broken shard from a Gordon's Dry Gin bottle. But what's most interesting about it is that this squarish, eight-sided variety of the Gordon's bottle was apparently first introduced in 1904, which leads me to suspect the bottle might have been discarded by one of the dam's original construction crew members sometime between about 1904 and 1913. I'm not sure how long that particular Gordon's bottle design was used, but the shard appears to be pre-1910 and is non machine made. I will have to do some additional research and hopefully discover more about the dates related to Gordon's bottles.

But the story doesn't end here ...

Because of the lake's recent draining, which hasn't been this low since the mid 1960s, an Indian encampment was discovered along the north shore that apparently no one knew about until just recently. We weren't sure of it's exact location ourselves until we accidently stumbled onto it and noticed the numerous grinding holes in the larger rocks. The grinding holes are the result of years and years of grinding acorns and other food-stuffs like seeds. One of the pictures that follows is an example of a grinding hole along with the 'mano' stone used to do the grinding. We found three of these manos (which means 'hand' in Spanish), plus there were shards of pottery scattered everywhere. It amazes me that the pottery shards are still fully intact after being under water for the most part of 100 years - you'd think the water would eventually cause them to dissolve. During the time of the Indian encampment, 150+ years ago, there was obviously no dam and no lake and the area was simply a large mountain valley with a creek flowing through the center of it.

All in all it was a great hunt and I plan to go back from time to time and hopefully find more "treasures."

The pictures are as follows ...

1. Whilshire Club acl soda bottle - front - after being cleaned
2. Back of bottle
3. Gordon's Dry Gin - broken shards

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

More pictures ...
1. Main part of the Indian encampment - jumble of rocks in the mid background
2. Grinding hole and mano
3. A beer bottle in the muck nestled in the crack of a large flat rock

 

[Photon440]

Well, I can see that it's time you acquired some ground penetrating radar equipment for your searches. Nice find, and very interesting about the uncovered Indian grounds. Great update, hope to see more.

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

Side-note ... I grew up in the Lake Morena area during the 1950s and 1960s and the mountain in the extreme distance of this picture was always nicknamed the "Dead Indian." It might be hard to see from this particular angle, but the nickname derived from what appears to be an Indian chief laying on his back. On the right is his head and he is wearing a feathered headdress that tapers to a point. In the middle is his stomach and on the left are his legs and feet. I think this picture is especially interesting and ironic because it shows a dead Indian encampment in the foreground and a so called dead Indian chief in the background ... which saddens me in more ways than one!

 

[SODAPOPBOB]

I will give you three guesses as to what this stone is called and who it is that's holding it? It is possibly the best example I have ever seen or found []