Backyard archaeology meets ‘This Old House’
DEB COX-JOHNSON
Correspondent
A “privy dig” took place at the historic Ames-Flor-
ida Stork House in Rockford July 14.
A “privy dig?” Is that really what it sounds like?
Yes, it is.
Why? Because privies and outhouses can hold
many treasures of the past, usually in the form of
glass bottles that are highly prized by collectors.
The Ames-Florida Stork House is itself a treasure,
completed in 1861, and lovingly owned and cared for
by the three families that owned it until 1986. That
year, it was donated to the City of Rockford by the
last occupant and owner, Meda Stork.
A passion for historic bottles
Mark Youngblood and Brian Mann have completed
thousands of digs. They spend nearly every weekend
for eight months of the year searching various sites
all over Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa.
Both had experiences early in life that inspired
their undying enthusiasm for history in the form of
the bottles, glassware, and signs used more than 100
years ago.
Throughout the dig July 14, Youngblood and Mann
entertained the observers with a steady stream of sto-
ries and insights.
For Youngblood, who grew up on White Bear
Lake, it started in childhood.
He remembers the lake being dredged in 1977. Out
of curiosity, he searched the dredged material and
found lots of mysterious treasures, mostly in the form
of old glass bottles. This fascinated him and set him
on the path to a lifetime of searching and excavating
dumps, construction sites, and old outhouse sites.
Youngblood and Mann met in the early 1990s on
the site of a former Minneapolis impound lot, which
was being excavated in order to build a parking lot.
Youngblood worked for a neighboring com-
pany and spotted a skid loader pulling a
bulldozer out of a creek.
Mann was the owner and operator of the
skid loader. His help with the bulldozer was
greatly appreciated and resulted in him be-
ing granted unlimited access in off-hours
to search the site for his bottle-collecting
hobby.
When Youngblood, curious, wandered
over, he was overwhelmed by the sheer
amount of collectable bottles on the site,
and he and Mann started their relationship,
while jointly working the site.
Shortly after meeting Mann and getting
involved with the site, Youngblood altered
his work schedule to provide a full hour for
lunch, instead of a 20-minute break. When Woody Woodward, center, is the grandson of the last owner, Meda
Stork, and is pictured with Tom Lemmage and Kevin Koehler, both
his employer got curious about the change, from the Rockford Area Historical Society.
Youngblood told the supervisor that he “had
ect at Ames-Florida Stork House with a small crowd
a new girlfriend.” He wanted to keep his treasure
of interested observers with whom to share jokes,
trove a secret. Youngblood still has at least nine 50-
stories of past digs, and explanati ons of the digging
gallon barrels of moonshine bottles from that early
process as they worked through it.
excavation.
First, they located a potential former privy site.
Picking a likely site to dig
They often be detected and identifi ed by a depression
When looking for a new site, Youngblood and in the landscape. Then, the excavation work began.
Youngblood and Mann used a variety of tools,
Mann look for a property that ideally was built in the
starting
with their custom-designed steel rods. These
1870s to 1880s. They have had the best luck in what
ranged
from
approximately 4 feet to 8 feet in length,
Youngblood termed the “bigger small towns.”
with
T-shaped
handles at the top. They carefully in-
Larger cities tend not to be as good for sites, be-
serted
the
rods
into the ground, searching for soft
cause it is more likely that earlier privies have been
spots,
indicating
that the ground had been previously
built over by either expansion or a tear-down, fol-
dug.
Hitting
a
very
hard sub layer meant that ground
lowed by a new and larger structure. The “bigger”
had
probably
not
been
disturbed and was not, there-
small towns can be better simply because, in a bigger
fore,
a
likely
former
privy
site.
town, the more likely it can be that bottles embossed
It
took
some
time
to
fi
nd
the spot where the fi rst
with a local proprietor’s name will be found.
rod
sank
into
softer
ground,
and then Mann marked
Finding undamaged, embossed bottles is the true
that
spot.
They
continued
carefully
testing and mark-
goal of a privy digger. Unusual bottles
ing
until
they
had
an
outline
of
the
likely
shape of the
with unique design features or beautiful
original
site.
colors add to a bottle’s desirability for a
Then, four tarps were laid down to mark these di-
collector.
mensions.
It should be mentioned that prior to any
The reason that privies can yield histor-
digging,
the
Rockford Area Historical Society had
ic artifacts is that they also functioned as
verifi
ed
with
utility providers that the yard was safe
garbage dumps.
to
dig.
During the Prohibition years in partic-
The existing sod was carefully removed in squares
ular, people needed a place to dispose of
and
put to the side in the exact formation in which it
bottles that once held illegal moonshine
would
eventually be replaced over the completed and
and, according to Youngblood, “bottles
fi
lled-in
dig site.
didn’t burn” like other discarded house-
Then,
Youngblood and Mann dug a squared-off pit
hold goods. So, bottles tended to be simply
approximately
4 feet by 6 feet, to the dimensions that
thrown into the outhouse.
they
had
marked.
They quickly and effi ciently alter-
Privies can be located anywhere, but of-
nated
“spells”
in
the
pit, and observers marveled at
ten the location was determined by the fe-
their
speed.
males of the households. This means it can
The deeper they went, the more carefully they
pay to examine the turf of the backyard for
worked.
When the fi rst shards were revealed, the work
convenience to the kitchen.
became more precise and smaller picks and trowels
Hard work and plenty of
were used, along with hand digging and probing.
Mark Youngblood searched for an area of soft ground, which would
probably be the site of an old outhouse.
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laughs
Youngblood and Mann started the proj-
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