Milk Bottle Collection Fills Basement

Milk Bottle Collection Fills Basement AG WORLD 31-5-21 When Lou and Sue McFadden built their retirement home 20 years ago, Lou designed the basement with his milk bottle collection in mind. "I never figured I'd fill it up, but I have," McFadden says. When he moved in he had a couple hundred bottles. Today he has about 3,500 bottles meticulously lined up on cherry wood shelves. All the bottles are from McFadden's home state, Ohio. The collection resulted in McFadden writing a book, "Ohio's Dairies." The bottles tell a part of the state's agriculture story, displaying different styles and labels from the vast numbers of dairies that were in business before paper cartons replaced glass bottles. McFadden knows his collection can never be complete. When dairies went out of business, they often dumped their bottles. Few people thought to save any of them. "Cleveland alone had 1,000 dairies. They were all over the place," he says. He started collecting early in his 40-year career working as a field man for four dairies. As he bought bottles, he had no idea they would become popular collectors items. McFadden purchased most of his bottles for less than $10. Now some are worth $100 to $300. The most he spent was $280 for a bottle from the Snows Dairy in Killbuck. "My strangest bottle says Under Laws, Ohio," McFadden says. He can't find any record of a town by that name. McFadden has mostly half pint, pint and quart bottles in his collection, but he has larger bottles as well as other dairy-related items. "It looks nice with 10 on a shelf, and seven shelves high," McFadden says. "I can fit 70 qt. bottles in a 4-ft. section." He fills each bottle with white pellets (which are used to make plastic milk cartons) so the lettering is easier to see. Plus, he puts an acrylic wax on the top of each bottle to make them look more attractive. Twice a year he dusts off every bottle with dry T-shirts. Collecting bottles inspired McFadden and his wife to travel the state checking out dairies, finding out their history and taking photos. That led to accumulating 1,200 photos of milk plants and documentation of more than 10,000 Ohio dairies. McFadden compiled the information into his book. He says the most interesting story he discovered was about Lloyd Noaker, an ice cream plant owner. He sold nine plants to Borden's for $1.2 million ù just before the Stock Market crash of 1929. Unfortunately, Noaker died of a heart attack the night after he received the check. Stories such as that and the desire to collect something that tells the history of dairies, keep McFadden interested in sharing his collection with people, and on the lookout for more bottles. Instead of traveling to bottle shows, McFadden says he shops mostly on eBay these days. He was not willing to pay $900 for a specialized Borden's bottle that sold on eBay recently, but there are some bottles he's interested in. "I can squeeze in a few more," he laughs, but expanding to the upstairs is not an option according to his wife, Sue. His book, Ohio Dairies, sells for $45 plus $5 S&H. Contact: Lou McFadden, P.O. Box 66, Winesburg, Ohio 44690 (ph 330 359-5370; suzannem@sssnet.com).

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