Milk Bottle Collection Inspired by Great Uncle

June is Dairy Month and to celebrate the Herald will feature stories like these talking about all things related to the dairy industry. This story is the second part of a three part series about local glass milk bottle collectors.

Ken Wertz of Hollidaysburg has been collecting old dairy glass milk bottles for about seven years, and got a lot of his collection from Clapper.

He had a great uncle named Eli Snowberger that shipped milk at the Loop Station in Hollidaysburg, which is one of the reasons he became interested in collecting the glass milk bottles.

“There were a lot of dairies back in the day — not far from them was Miller’s Spring Dairy and West Loop Dairy was also a few miles down the road,” Wertz said.

He, of course, has bottles from those Hollidaysburg area dairies in his collection, but also has others from around Blair County including the Cove.

Wertz’s collection includes bottles from Morrison’s Cove Dairy, P.S. McGee, Bardell, Cove Forge, Darwill, in all different sizes and styles.

“The difference in the size of bottles people got depended on the amount they drank — milk was delivered every day because they didn’t have refrigerators,” Wertz said.

Some of the bottles in the collection have baby faces and there are also bottles where the top is shaped like a cop.

“A lot of the dairy names on the bottles are not around any longer –except Ritcheys and Valewood in Cresson – the oldest bottle in the collection goes back at least to the late 1800s,” he said.

Wertz said a lot of the diaries just went out of business over time.

“I enjoy just the different dairies and all the history about them,” he said.

Wertz said he has met a lot of other people who collect milk bottles.

“I have had a lot of fun and met a lot of great people,” he said.

He has a lot of other related items such as crates with the logos of the companies, and other advertisement items such as caps, ice cream scoops, ice cream containers, calendars, cow bells, broom holders, lids, pencils, pencil sharpeners, straws, tape measures, matches, picks to help with getting the caps off, and rulers.

Wertz has a container made of wax from Hershbergers in Altoona with a Pennsylvania Railroad logo.

“That is what they used on the trains; it is made out of wax. They couldn’t have the glass bottles on the train because it could break,” he said.

Wertz also had smaller bottles that were used for creamer in restaurants for coffee.

Some of the dairies also had milk bottles for newborns.