Bottle collector enjoys history

The collection is arranged according to various
categories.

WINESBURG, Ohio (AP) — About 35 years ago, somebody — no one can recall who — gave Lou McFadden an empty milk bottle.

He promptly dropped and broke it while washing the bottle. So he got another one. And another. And another.

Today, the retired dairy worker, who dragged his wife, Sue, into his hobby, has about 3,500 glass bottles — all from different Ohio dairies, nearly every one of which no longer exists.

Their milk-bottle collection is one of the largest — and of best quality — in the state, but it’s hidden from public view in their Holmes County home, surrounded by rolling Northeast Ohio farmland, bucolic inns and cheese makers.

The McFaddens’ two-tiered basement — essentially there’s a basement in the basement — is a shrine to the dairy industry.

Milk bottle after milk bottle, from the carpeted floor to the ceiling, sit along specially constructed shelves.

Most of the bottles are filled with white plastic pellets giving the illusion they contain milk.

They are arranged by community and whether they are embossed with the dairy name or whether the name is written in color.

Dairies used to put their names on bottles in various colors. Reds. Blues. Greens. Oranges.

Sprinkled on other shelves are ice cream boxes, cottage cheese containers, baseball caps with dairy company logos and other dairy-related items. Even the small bathroom is crowded with memorabilia.

The basement was constructed with the collection in mind because McFadden wanted them on display. “If I couldn’t look at them, I wouldn’t want them,” he said.

He doesn’t have a real explanation for why he became a collector.

“I guess it was a natural thing for me to do because I was in the dairy business,” said McFadden, whose 40-year career included stints with the Orrville Milk Co., Lawson’s Milk Co., Reiter Dairy and Superior Dairy.

He worked as a field man, traveling to and from dairy farms to check quality.

He got his wife into the hobby when they married 24 years ago, although Sue McFadden, 65, a retired food inspector, isn’t as fanatical.

“It’s kind of one of those hobbies that has taken on a life of its own,” she said. “I wish we had kept track of all the costs.”

Together, they self-published the book “Ohio’s Dairies” earlier this year.

The 365-page, hardcover book chronicles the history of Ohio dairies, provides a listing for known dairies in each county and features about 500 photos, including some of their impressive collection.

The dairy heyday was in the 1930s and 1940s, when there were about 10,000 bottling, butter, cheese and other dairy-related plants in Ohio. The Cleveland area alone had about 1,000.

Today, there are only about 15 statewide.

“It’s sad what happened,” Lou McFadden said. “It’ll dwindle down to where we have nine or 10 in the state.”

Bottle collecting is one of the most popular collecting hobbies, with milk bottles being a small portion of that.

About 2,000 people belong to the National Association of Milk Bottle Collectors. “Basically it’s for the history,” said the association’s publicity chairman Ralph S. Riovo of Macungie, Pa.

“If you just stop and think about it, almost anyone in the United States at one time had a relative who lived or worked on a farm.”

Carl Abell, who runs America’s Ice Cream & Dairy Museum in Medina, said McFadden’s collection is one of the best.

“He has one of the largest collections in the state,” he said. “Most of the large ones are just junk, and they are nowhere near the quality. He has museum quality.”

The McFaddens’ collection is so expansive that the couple has been forced to create an index-card database to keep track of them all.

It also helps prevent McFadden from buying a bottle he already owns.

He’s done that before. “It doesn’t make you feel very intelligent,” he said.

McFadden, who’s still an active collector, finds bottles by traveling to bottle shows and keeping an eye on eBay.

His online moniker is “Too many bottles.”

Bottle collecting used to be a cheap hobby, with bottles going for $1 a piece.

Not anymore. Rare bottles can now go for $30 to $60, although most cost less than that.

The most he’s paid is $280 for a bottle by Snow’s Dairy in Killbuck.

He estimates his Alfalfa Farm Dairy bottle from Leipsic is valued at $580.

McFadden isn’t interested in selling any of them, though. He’s not in it for the money. He’s strictly a collector.

The only time he sells items is if he has two, which happens occasionally when he finds a better-quality bottle than one he already owns.

There are a couple of mysteries the McFaddens haven’t been able to uncover. Many of the early bottles have the letters “CCS” on them. They’ve been unable to figure out what that stands for.

Then there’s the Spring Hill Dairy bottle from Under Laws, Ohio. Despite all their research for the book, which included traveling the state taking photos and visiting libraries, they can’t figure out where Under Laws is or was.

“Where on earth that is remains to be seen,” McFadden said.

The McFaddens’ children aren’t interested in the collection, they said, so they’re not sure what will happen to it.

“Some day, we’ll have a big auction,” Sue McFadden said.