The Bottle Farm-!!!
“During its heyday, The Bottle Farm clearly made a lasting impression on some who had seen its strange sights,” wrote Joseph Watson.
A decade ago, I read my boyhood friend’s writing, “The Bottle Farm Near Farmersville, Ohio.” Read it since Writer Joe Watson perfectly described The Bottle Farm.
I grew up in the Village of Farmersville, Ohio, during my boyhood. There, my father taught the Vocational Agriculture program at the football-less Farmerville High School during the Eisenhower era of the 1950s, a time of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity.
I used to see the Bottle Farm almost daily, but it did not bother me. A few decades later, my first cousin, who often visited me from Dayton, Ohio (10 miles away), told me he had not forgotten the damn bottle farm. Whoa, it was a negative!
Watch the 19-minute video of “Historic Farmersville, Ohio,” described by my boyhood friend, Sherry Wallace.
In this video, one of the Schwartzel houses is where my family rented the second floor in the late 1940’s. It is shown at the timeframe of 10:50.
I would have no idea if my dad knew Owner Winter Zellar (Zero) Swartsel, who passed away in 1953, although my dad knew the owners of most farms in Jackson Township. Yeah, I was a member of the 4-H Club there.
The two photos above were taken by Edward Henry Weston, one of the masters of 20th-century photography. Wikipedia mentions that Edward’s sister lived in Middletown, Ohio, 14 miles south of Farmersville, so he had a chance to visit The Bottle Farm.
This farm became the Farmersville / Jackson Township Joint Recreation Park.
Of course, I thank Joe Watson, Sherry Wallace, Tom Ulrich, and others for preserving the history of The Bottle Farm.
