LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Louisville’s trash from 120 years ago is coming back to life as a treasure trove of history.
Everything has been beautifully cleaned of century-old dirt by Patrick Donley, who says Louisville at the time looked like this, “Every third corner was a bar or a pharmacy.”
He’s discovered a glass syringe, a relic from the other pandemic of our time, 1918.
Civil war-era shattered kids dolls were lined up almost like a coroner has been in the room.
Donley is trying to find their missing heads and legs to reconnect them with their parts.
The line-up of dolls resembles a house of horrors.
Donley agrees, saying every time he digs, “You see this face emerging out of the soil.”
Welcome to the future museum to be called the “Mary Street Midden Project” Midden, is just a nice word for dump.
It's peeling back an often overlooked slice of Louisville's wild river town history. Like the teeth Donley found, he says, “They are vulcanite and porcelain false teeth. I was four feet down underground digging through, and I’m like AHHHH TEETH!”
Donley bought the historic building on Mary Street in Germantown a few years ago, not knowing what was underneath it. It was on top of a old city dump. He says, “The city actually paid them to allow their neighbors and local businesses to deposit their trash here.”
One day, Donley went to the basement that has a dirt floor, and suddenly he says, “That’s when I found my first two beer bottles and I thought uhhh, probably a constructor worker. Then there was porcelain, stoneware, baby doll heads.”
It was all the work of Phyllis, the groundhog. Donley says she was kicking up stuff, “They were in her way, get out of my way, get this stuff out of here!!”
He’s since discovered original Worchester sauce bottles from Lea and Perrins.
Plus glass juice bottles from Welches Grape Juice Company.
The early days of Louisville bourbon legends like Garvin Brown who started Brown Forman. One bottle is from the 1880’s.
Then there’s the free bourbon samples in little jugs that were handed out in Louisville bars.
“This is a free sample for Paul Jones Whiskey. Paul Jones is the creator of Four Roses, ”Donley said.
The Mary Street trash dump was active in the days of segregation. But it proves that the dump was equal to all.
One remarkable find is a small bourbon jug turned into a church collection jar.
Donley points out, “It says Coates Chapel AME church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, with Reverend Vaughn. This church still exists. It’s called Coakes Chapel with a 'K' not a 'T' , so it's a misprint.”
Louisville real estate agent Sam Heine's interest in historic homes, takes him into many of them in Germantown, Paristown and Shelby Park.
He told us, “At the time that was a dump, this was the outskirts of Louisville centered around Downtown, the West End, and Market Street and so that's why they put a dump here because it was further out than most people lived.”
Donley has architects plans for his new museum drawn up.
But he explains, he won’t be profiting from other people’s trash. “I'm not going to monetize the artifacts. The artifacts are what the museum's going to be about, and the story of trash is all going to be revealed through the experience at the museum. So my trash is everyone's treasure.”
So what about Phyllis the ground hog? Donley would leave her treats and feed her. He says, “the next day, I would come in and there would be a little bottle sitting on top. I think she was thanking me.”
Phyllis died of old age, but in a tribute Patrick named his company “Groundhog Archaeology”.
After the true founder of the Mary Street Midden Project.
For more information and to support the Mary Street Midden project, click here.
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