This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 3, 2011 - When you're digging for utility lines, you don't expect to find toilets. But that's what happened this summer at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Now, from sinks to shoes to saucers, a local archeological company is sorting through pieces of the past discovered during parking lot renovation.
The first find happened in June when Charles Zidar, who works in maintenance at the Garden, spotted some broken glass while mapping utility routes.
"I wondered, 'Where did all this stuff come from?' And I started to kick around a little more dirt and more stuff started coming up," Zidar said.
Work in that area of the parking lot was stopped while archeologists dug up dozens of items from depths up to five feet including eyeglasses and silverware along with the toilets and other bathroom and kitchen fixtures. The objects had at some point survived incineration.
"It was a surprise to us all," Zidar said. "But the construction workers said they find stuff like this all the time on jobs in St. Louis. They were surprised we were collecting it."
More Where That Came from
The Botanical Garden sent the artifacts to the Archaeological Research Center in Overland, which determined that they originated between 1900 and 1930. There's a good reason why the timeline stops there, according to the Garden's vice-president of general services Paul Brockmann.
"That's when they suspect the city implemented its trash program," Brockmann said.
A second set of similar items was unearthed a short time later and is now being examined by the archeological firm. It's not clear if any of it is actually valuable. Likely, there is more stuff still under the parking lot but it will remain buried, at least for now.
"We're only dealing with it as it comes out disturbed areas; we're not intentionally looking for it," Zidar said. "But we're documenting it so if somebody wants to do something down the road, they can."
Old maps show a stream once ran through the current parking lot, and Zidar speculated that may have inspired its designation as a dumping ground.
"It's kind of like today where, any time there's a depression, people are going to dump there stuff there," Zidar said.
The Garden hasn't decided whether it will eventually display the artifacts. If it does, what might strike visitors as the most intriguing will be in the eye of the beholder, according to Brockmann.
"It depends upon your take on life as to whether it's the intact bottle or the old shoe," Brockmann said. "It's whatever sparks your interest from a past era."