Tree stump removal

[Mary Fisher]

You get very thirsty in the desert.

Mary

[The Natural Philosopher]

No< ithink it was more a case of 'I need a house, and the only freely available materials here are the bottles that the drink comes in'

Its in one of those 'ghost towns' abandoned by the miners.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You can say that again. Around 2 liters of soft drink an hour and all day without a piss.

Around 130-140F. Somewhat over 50C.

[Mike Mitchell]

If in Germany you could probably build a new house from the refund on the bottles, as everything is recycled there. Beer, fizzy water, and so on.

MM

[Tim Downie]

IIRC, wasn't the house built by a mortician who used all his empty embalming fluid bottles?

Tim

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah, I belive this house dates to 1860 or so.

Not much recycling then.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Tim Downie wrote:

No. I think it was just somethg a local knocked up.

I think the town is 'Rhyolite' which gives you a clue as to waht sort of place it was. Now a heritage site. No wood for miles, everything brought in on waggons presumably. So trash was just not removed, and someone built a house of it.

from the latter, the history... much later than I thought actually.

"The Rhyolite Ghost Town is located off Highway 374, four miles west of Beatty, Nevada. This was once the third largest city in Nevada. The rich gold mining made the town boom, and eventually caused it's end as well. Gold was found by Shorty Harris and Ed Cross in 1904. By 1906 there were over 3,000 people living in Rhyolite, and by 1908 there were over 8,000. The town was grand in it's day with three water systems, three train lines, three newspapers, two hospitals, eight doctors, two dentists, two undertakers, eighteen grocery stores, churches, an opera house, symphony, telephone/telegraph, electricity, over fifty saloons, and a red light district. When gold prices dropped in 1910, Rhyolite began to collapse. The Las Vegas Tonopah Railroad ceased it's passenger service to the town in 1916. The remaining residents no longer had electricity or water. The population dropped from thousands to hundreds. By 1920, there were only about twenty people left. One of the remaining buildings that is still intact is the L.V.&T. Depot. The Las Vegas Tonopah Railroad Station was completed in 1908, and cost an incredible $130,000 to build. Another building which still remains intact is Tom Kelly's bottle house. The 76 year old man who built the house used around 30,000 glass bottles to create this masterpiece. It took him almost six months to complete, finishing it in 1906. Paramount Studios used it in a movie in the 1920's. The ruins of many of the other buildings remain today. It is hard to believe that the Cook Bank Building was once an elegant $90,000 structure with marble floors and mahogany woodwork. The remains of the jail also still stand in town. No one ever broke out of it, but it was broken into twice. Many others, such as the hospitals and churches, were moved to other cities"