partially uncovered early 1880's chicago night scavenger dumpsite yields several artifacts

in 1912 an apartment complex was built above a small land fill, one that night scavengers (i.e., privy vault cleaners) likely dumped their wagons filled with refuse in, beginning around 1878 up until the 1890's. according to an 1886 sanborn insurance map, this large tract of land west of western avenue had not even been parceled out, nor were the surrounding lots built on. there was however one exception, in the form of a massive wood structure in the form of an "ice house" located nearby.

at first i thought that the refuse we discovered may have come from that operation, but after discovering several household objects, including a largely intact wood bread roller and several leather shoes - it was no doubt a dumping ground. the artifacts lifted from the topmost layers (still far below grade) date from the early 1890's, but then it stops. there could be any number of reasons for this, but it is interesting to note that right around the same time seymour had finally been dialed into the ever-expanding sewer pipes being laid between the streets.

the two lots now being excavated began as any other, extracting buckets of earth and carting them off in preparation for pouring the concrete foundation where a new three-unit house will be constructed. however, everything went downhill after the bucket began dredging the topmost layer of the dumpsite. within an hour, there was a foul stench, blackened mud mixed with 19th century trash - good for me, and a nightmare for the excavator. everything from shoes, porcelain doll parts, bed springs, horse shoes and mountains of foul-smelling fecal sludge made access to the clean and pure chicago clay bed a treacherous operation.

the site was bedecked with delays, headaches and ultimately, the excavator being consumed by the dangerously deep and sticky mud. to complete the job, another excavator was brought to the site to pull the disabled machine from the muck, followed shortly after by truckloads of crushed rock -- added to plug the void left from the gargantuan pile of trash that finally was removed.

interestingly, it turns out that the two lots to the north contained an apartment building, believed to have been constructed the same year as the recently demolished apartment. the tenants had to deal time and again with the unpleasant odor unleashed when the basement floor needed repairs. interestingly, when portions of the cemented ground were removed, bottles and other debris were discovered, with a few even removed as souvenirs. with that in mind, i immediately suspected that the bulk of the dumpsite was further north; since the combination of debris and wet sludge abruptly ended on the southern end of the dig site, it seemed plausible.

in fact, as the excavator's bucket clawed away at the earth near the lot line, more and more sludge oozed out, spreading its vile contents all over the job site. when i asked the operator if he had encountered a buried landfill before, he said "never". he has apparently excavated approximately 700 residential lots over a 10 year span of time, with the bulk of the digging taking place on the near west side of chicago.

since i had two concurrent salvages and have already "capped" off my image database for the upcoming "unearthing chicago" book, i did not immerse myself into this dig as much as i typically do. i still secured quite a few artifacts and continued to document the process, both in still imagery and short movie sequences. the towing of one stuck excavator by another was certainly a sight to behold and capture.

the dig yielded a sizable number of artifacts that go beyond bottles, in this, my third or fourth dumpsite discovered. this might be squeezed in as the perfect epilogue, clearly demonstrating that i cannot walk away from a facet of "salvage" i was convinced would be short-lived.