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History Room Highlight: November
This month as you've been walking into the building, you may have noticed something new has popped up in the display case in the vestibule. Or really, quite a few somethings. This pop-up mini-display is there to show off some of the interesting artifacts that are part of the History Room's collections, specifically some of our bottles.
If you take a second to peer through the glass and try to read the labels, you might see some familiar names and perhaps a few surprising ones as well. Alongside old soda bottles are some dainty little vessels that used to be common sights on the shelves of drugstores downtown. A few are from Swett's Drugstore, some others from S. Anderson & Son, and still more from Hartleb & Cheltra, all of which had premises along the downtown at one point or another.
What might be more unusual, though, is to realize that some of those bottles were actually made right here in town. Bath has had not just one, but actually two separate bottling plants--the Bath Bottling Company and the Liberty Bottling Company. Believe it or not, the facility used to be right downtown on Broad Street where Bath Savings' parking garage now stands. Both companies made bottles of many varieties, including some of the little drugstore vials used locally! If you ever do any excavating here in town, or even just some light gardening, there's a good chance you might stumble across one of these pieces of Bath history. Wouldn't they make for a lovely little vase?
If you're curious to know more about the bottles or the companies that made or sold them, pop on up to the History Room anytime and ask! Thumbing through the old directories is a great way to spend a chilly November afternoon.
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