Old Glass Bottles at Construction Site

At the site of our current project for Mickey Finn’s Brewery in downtown Libertyville, the plumbers found a number of old glass bottles when excavating for new plumbing lines. We were pretty intrigued by the dirt encrusted green, blue and clear bottles. We decided to do a little informal research to determine their origins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They Put Their Trash WHERE?

In the old days when the DeSoto dealership was built, there was probably minimal trash pick-up service. According to an article about the history of waste regulation, in the old days there was little local government effort to provide an organized system for waste collection and disposal. In small towns, some trash was collected and thrown into wetlands and rivers or buried. Many people just threw their trash out back and burned or buried it. Of course, many bottles remained in the ground for later generations to discover.

Mysterious Origins of Old Bottles

Most of our bottles have raised embossed letters on the bottle sides and bottoms reading:

“F.W.Muller”

“Budweiser”

“Superb Birk Bros. Brewing Co.”

“Edelweiss 13 – OZ CONTENTS Schoenhofen Chicago”.

We searched antique glass bottle and company websites to learn more about them. Here is what we learned:

• F.W. Muller was a soda water and carbonated beverage company located in Arlington Heights, IL. Founded in 1872 by Frederick Muller, the company was renamed Arlington Club Beverages in 1923 by his sons. The last owner of the beverage business declared bankruptcy in 1991.The company founder Frederick Muller was the Mayor of Arlington Heights from 1897-1899 and Supervisor of Wheeling Township for 28 years between 1887 and 1915.

• Birk Bros. Brewing Company was established in 1891 in Chicago on North Wayne Street. The company closed in 1920 due to Prohibition and then reopened until 1950. Superb beer was produced in 1933-35.

• Adolphus Busch was a partner at E. Anheuser & Co. in St. Louis. In 1876, he began brewing Bohemian lager and named it Budweiser Lager Beer. It became America’s first national beer brand.

• The Schoenhofen Edelweiss Brewing Company of Chicago was located in the Pilsen neighborhood at 18th and Canalport. Like many other brewers, they made non-alcoholic products during the Prohibition era and their product Green River was second only to Coca-Cola in popularity in the Midwest.

New Use for Old Bottles

All we can say is that this building site was MEANT to be the home of a brewery! Bob cleaned the bottles up and is making a wood and glass display case for Brian Grano to hang on the wall at the new brewery. Be sure to look for the old bottles when you visit the new Mickey Finns.

 

For more information about old bottles, visit the Historic Glass Bottle Identification and Information website to learn about typical utilitarian machine-made and mouth-blown bottles and jars. You can also refer to Antique Glass Bottles: Their History and Evolution 1500-1850 (Van den Bossche 2001) for a comprehensive worldwide bibliography of books and articles about bottles.