Bottle digging is another outdoor sport one can do

Years ago, just when I thought I had dabbled in about every legal outdoor activity, my better half asked if I’d ever heard of Richard Carr, who used to own Buried Treasure Antiques in downtown Fort Gibson.

My wife went on to say Carr, at that time, had a wonderful shop with all sorts of interesting antiques, but he really enjoyed “bottle digging” and collecting.

While visiting with him, I became fascinated with his stories, and the prospect of finding yet another outdoor activity to “to fill the gap” during what I call the “lull period” of winter.

It’s the time when big-game seasons have come to a close, but turkey season and spring fishing are on the horizon.

Carr began digging bottles in the mid 1970s in old farm or town dumps in and around the Muskogee area.

“After digging lots of neat old bottles, I decided to specialize in collecting bottles from Tulsa, Wagoner, Fort Gibson, Tahlequah and, of course, Muskogee,” Carr said.

He really enjoys bottles that have I.T. (Indian Territory) on them. There are sodas, drug stores, milks and other types of bottles from these towns.

After 10 years of digging, he was asked to go outhouse digging for bottles, and he became curious. His digging friends told him they used Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory to locate the outhouses.

Carr’s first dig was in Purcell. and he dug a Purcell I.T. Drugstore bottle — and Carr was hooked. He later did most of his digging in old towns in Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma, and he has dug hundreds of sites and almost always found bottles.

People, including myself, ask him why outhouses are such a magnet for bottles.

“Grandpa didn’t want grandma to know he was drinking, so he goes out to the outhouse, drinks his whiskey and throws the bottle down the outhouse,” Carr said. “Also, it was a great place to bury trash.”

The most valuable bottle Carr dug up was an amber-looking beer bottle labeled Muskogee Bottling Works, Muskogee, I.T. Its value was $1,500.

Members of the Tulsa Antiques and Bottle Club set up at several shows around the country and Tulsa. There are lots of different categories of bottle collecting including historical flasks, bitters, cures, remedies, perfumes, medicines, inks and lots of others.

“Rarity and condition determines value,” Carr said. “It’s a fun hobby and good exercise. Try it sometime.”

A friend of his who had been active in bottle-digging, Johnnie Fletcher, wrote a book entitled “Oklahoma Bottles: Dose Glasses and Crock Jugs.” It lists prices and contains drawings and pictures of different rare and valuable Oklahoma and Indian Territory bottles and their prices.

Fletcher also researched and published two reference books, “Oklahoma Drug Store Bottles” and “Oklahoma Soda Bottles,” according to an article in The Oklahoman in 1992.

This hobby just goes to show us that there are all kinds of outdoor interests and hobbies.

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John Kilgore is the former Greenleaf State Park manager. He can be reached by emailing him at jkilgoreoutdoors@yahoo.com.