How I find bottle dumps???How do you???

[steamjunker]

I start with map overlays, simply pick an area, town or city, then I overlay of the same with the oldest map I can find for that area via. this site has worked well for me (Historic Map Works, Residential Genealogy ?) use basic, to overlay the area, which you can adjust the overlay percentage and see the current map overlay. This gives you a head start for the area. After you do extensive research and printout the map overlay including where you will be parking and or dropped off your ready to start scouting for your dump.

Be extensively precarious to all your surroundings including but not limited to the size of the trees(meaning be able to date how old the trees are by the diameter of the trunk and compare to other surrounding trees/saplings) the terrain(look for ravines,streams,swamps,ponds,maybe a large oval swamp that used to be a pond etc...)whats under your feet, know what your stepping on maybe broken glass,metal pipes,etc..things that make no sense why are they there?, sample the earth and smell it(does it smell fresh, or old and kinda acidic and moldy at the same time?), make some test holes or scrapes...I always make notes on the soil that is deposited from GROUNDHOGS , and what they dig up, (groundhogs love loose soil,"easier to dig", checkout what they dug up for you,if you find any glass,metal or ashes your on top or near the dump, if you think your close, start diggor continue to map the area,then dig. Good Luck!! Extensive Research is the KEY!! Did you know Farmers usually dumped there trash in a swamp or ravine, because these are areas which were not profitable or able to be used for crops, so the land was considered useless?

I searched for a farm dump yesterday 6/15/13 .Located a very old dump.Groundhog hole "tailings; (ash & coal) very good signs of an old dump.I smelled the soil and compared the surrounding area< soon I will dig....

 

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[relicmeister]

Good advice. Steamjunker

 

[Oradden]

Every dump I've found I have stumbled across it. But I have done basically what you did. Just havent looked for them yet

 

[starwarsblazer]

The only bottle dump that I came across was completely by accident. I was metal detecting my farm, digging up lots of the old zinc canning lids. They have a certain tone on my machine that is unique for some reason. I got several hits in one small area of zinc lids, started digging and began pulling up bottles just inches below the surface. That particular hole was probably six feet deep and ten feet wide. I dug hundreds of zinc lids out of there, along with hundreds of bottles and other junk. The bottles ranged in date from the twenties to the fifties. The hole was about fifty feet behind the kitchen of the farmhouse. 90% of the bottles were common whiskeys, but a few were very cool. Several Grand Rapids Brewing Company beer bottles, an old Cocoa glass jar and several medicine bottles. The coolest was a small blue bottle with the cap still intact. After cleaning, I could see there was liquid inside. I unscrewed the cap and on the bottom of the cap was a glass dropper attached to it and the bottle was filled with iodine (It still smells fresh). I also found a WWII prayer dog tag and several wheat pennies in bottles. Unfortunately I had to stop digging because the ground water table is high in this area, and filled in the hole and made it impossible to dig. One of the best unexpected finds I have ever stumbled across.

 

[steamjunker]

Great find starwars. I too have used my metal detector and hit a couple dumps, wish I still had one MD.