Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River President Terri Knachel visited a group of bottle collectors at Loch Raven High School to talk to them about the history of Essex, Maryland.
Museum photos and clippings come from the Heritage Society Baumgartner Archives and other sources, scanned by Rita Gaunt, museum photos by Sue Carter and additional research by archivist Scott Huffines.
This print archive captures a historical snapshot of life in Essex and Middle River, Maryland. The archive contains nearly 300 categorical binders documenting our community activities with articles, pamphlets, and photographs from 1969 through the 1980s. The Heritage Society has been scanning the collection to our website to share with our extended community.
As we continue to build new collections, we are seeking new materials such as photographs and ephemera that pertain to the community and business history of Essex and Middle River. Please contact essexmuseum@gmail.com if you have historical memories or items to donate or would like to become a member.
Read more about the Heritage Society Baumgartner Archives.
I have actually found a whole bottle of the Bauerschmidt beer brand in a stream in the middle of the woods in Carroll Island. Being an amateur bottle collector of ten years, I’ve had the great fortune of having access to a secret spot that contains THOUSANDS of bottles from the 1940’s and 1950’s. Unfortunately, a great deal of them are broken, however one doesn’t stop looking simply because some are broken. You have to keep looking in hopes that one day you’ll find that whole, rare bottle that no one has few of, it has never seen before. That’s what keeps me going, regardless of seeing tons of pictures of people who possess bottles that I also have collected. Still, I search and hope to find that “golden” oldie that’s rare and largely unknown to the bottle collection society at large.
Good luck to those of my fellow collectors. Keep searching!
I too know a spot in Middle River and have found a bunch of whole bottles from the Maryland Bottling company and others. I have found 3 Bauerschmidt beer fragments. One was almost whole. I found Bromo seltzer and such at my spot as well. I just today found a fragment where the side says “Popular” and the bottom says Registered Middle River MD. There are many full and broken bottles at this dump I stumbled upon. The dump ranges from the Bauerschmidt era through the 80s.
I grew up in Bauernschmidt Manor (1970s thru 1997) , lived directly across from the Manor house and property. In the 70s there were still a good number of empty wooded lots. We used to find Bauernschmidt beer bottles all thebtime. Wish I had kept them. They seemed no bug deal at the time there were so many! BTW…loved the neighborhood so much I bought my parents house there in 1999 when they moved and stayed until 2009.