National Bottle Museum — Attraction in Town of Milton

November 17th, 2019 Leah's Cakery Round Lake, New York

Hello Sunday! I didn't do much on Saturday, so I wonder if you are a Sunday funday? I looked for reasons to leave town after my writing session at Leah's, but little up in Saratoga Springs appealed to me.

The Brookside Museum located on a lovely creek in Ballston Spa has a Sleepy Hollow event this evening. Probably aimed at parents with young children, I have to hope they have fun. Ballston Spa stands one hundred miles or more north than the Hudson Valley town of Tarrytown, the enclave on the river that holds Sleepy Hollow. So how authentic could the event possibly be? Maybe a local griot has a great Rip Van Winkle schtick and an outfit to go with that.

The museum resides in a two story mansion that holds an amateur museum staffed by volunteers. The call has gone out on the museum's possible demise. People have come running with gifts of money and time. As for myself, I never found it open.

The National Bottle Museum on Ballston Spa's main road operates a two floor museum filled with well organized old glass, even radium infused glass glowing fluorescently in a dark case. The older man who greets me upon each visit has hired a team of young people, doing documentation and finding new artifacts. He has established a glass studio near the Abner Doubleday home where today teens are learning lampworking of glass. Why can't the Brookside be cool like the bottle museum?

The director of the Bottle Museum had no knowledge of the Bottle House, a house constructed entirely of soda bottles in Kaleva, Michigan. I hardly know Kaleva and yet I'm proud of the town. I have wondered about the meetings of the Finnish Temperance League. The Kaleva Tavern and the grocery store both sell booze, so the league lost. But plenty of booze bottles go out that door for the construction of walls. Most new construction arrived as prebuilt trailers.

The Kaleva gift shop the last time I visited sold shells with Finnish jokes written on the shiny inside, in Finnish, thankfully with translation. Of all the bottles on the shelf at the museum, I see the hand blown glass of many bottling works. I haven't seen a bottle from the South Range Bottlings Works, the name printed in raised letters on the side. When I'm in Hancock, I know where to buy one for donation.

A good museum brings on the musing. I can walk around the Bottle Museum in my imagination. I could have offered my photography services last summer, documenting bottle after bottle, learning more about the development of beverage bottling. Today, Coca Cola got nailed in the press for plastic pollution, worst in class. Maybe product development needs a field trip to this humble museum with big windows...

The National bottle museum is a great place to visit for anyone who loves glass works, bottles, history and combination of all 3. Within the beautiful historic building is a world of many antique bottles as well as their descriptions and origin. The museum is nicely laid out and houses most of the bottles in the old shelves which used to be part of a hardware store. The staff are knowledgeable, friendly and pleasant. Whether you prefer to have a chat about the museum, local history or would prefer a quieter immersion to do your own exploring, the staff leaves that up to you.

The 2nd floor includes a beautiful gallery run by Fred that is a hidden gem. It exhibits works by numerous known and unknown artists that range in different mediums, from photography, paintings, metalworks, glassworks, etc. The exhibits often have a theme and are replaced with new works every few weeks to inspire visitors anew.

This museum is run and maintained mostly by volunteer staff all of whom bring with them the love of art, community, history and their wish to connect and share the experience of life’s...

When I first heard of a bottle museum, I was wondering what’s there to display…just bottles?!? Well, it turns out bottles can be very interesting. There is tons of history around them and attached to them. The museum does a great job providing insights and making it an entertaining experience. The staff is friendly and very knowledgeable and passionate about the topic.

Besides more exhibits of bottles (including uranium bottles), the second floor offers a very different experience. It provides a space for local artists to display their work. There are real gems to discover that you wouldn’t find anywhere else. Exhibitions change every 4-8 weeks, so make sure...