Ghost Town question

[kurt-ks]

Hello all, New guy with a question for ya I have a ghost town that is my favorate place to metal detect,it dates from 1883 until 1902.Until last fall I never gave bottle digging a thought there because it's been farm ground since the early twenty's and figured if there was bottles they would be broke from years of plowing and working the ground (boy was I wrong) This town had a population of 3,000 at one time with many hotels and stores. My question is-do think there would be a town dump or a place they used as one? Last fall I was detecting the out skirts of the town (shown on a plot map of town as colored section) and found what I thought was an old house site(lots of iron hits)Found a huge overload signal and dug to remove it,it was the remains of a wagon wheel with hub and ring still there. After only about 2 foot started getting old bone fragments and bottles.My problem is some bottles look old and some look more like 30's or 40's,talked to land owner and he did say there was a house there until the 50's so don't think it was from the town.Do you think that maybe the house occupants used the same dump as the town folks? I have removed close to a hundred bottles from there and have hit targets with a probe in a twenty foot diameter from where I'm digging. Any Idea's?Are single farm house dumps usually that big?I am a total newbee at bottle digging,but had a blast pulling them out of the ground!Here is some that I thought where cool-I found five of the stomach bitters one Thanks for any help--Kurt

 

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[cryptic]

One way to find out is to keep on digging! The older items may be closer to the bottom. Nice finds!

 

[jgas]

Cryptic is right...Keep hammering that site deeper. Yes a single family dump could be quite large. Depending on how big the family was of course. A buddy of mine just completed a dump type dig here and found bottles from the 30's and 40's but then found a large stash of pontiled 1850's bottles worth thousands of dollars. So keep digging.. Get us some pics of some of the other bottles too. The Hostetters is really pretty common but some variants are worth more than others. Thanks for posting. jgas

 

[Pontil]

First i would see if i could locate any of the old Sanborn fire insurance maps.They help if you can find the old homesites and can lead you to the possible privy's. I would also search any low laying areas or ravines.In my past experience i have found the old town dumping areas in places where they weren't likely to build such as swampy area or ravines where the could fill.I wish you the best of luck and im sure you will find some nice bottles if you stick with it.