From about 1900 to 1950 part of the ground floor of my building housed the local newspaper, which my great-grandfather owned (our family never owned the building, just the business that rented space there). The upstairs of the building was a hotel (and brothel...see above).
Through the depression era my famously alcoholic grandfather (son of the newspaper founder) was editor of the newspaper. When I was making an offer to buy the building I had a guy climb up under the building crawl space to inspect the foundation. He found a trap door, that's now boarded over from above, in the section where the newspaper office was located.
Beneath that trap door he found a mound of half-pint whiskey bottles. We haven't touched them yet. They're still under the floor. But I pulled a few out, did a Google search, and determined them to be from the depression era. My 88-year-old mother confirms that her dad ALWAYS had a half-pint of whiskey on him.
So I have no doubt that what we've found is my grandfather's empty whiskey bottle collection! Amazing. The newspaper business moved to another location before I was born. My grandfather died of cirrhosis of the liver before I was born. But to think that now, all these years later, I've bought the building and this "historic" collection, is amazing.
Web searches indicate that these old bottles are worth $25-$35 each, and there are hundreds of them, but I would never sell them. I plan to display them, and the story of them, in my inn's pub.
This all has been just great fun!
