Its prior existence is a bit of a mystery, but a century-plus-old dump buried near the Myers-Wilkins Elementary School site in East Hillside has yielded treasure for night-time diggers and a financial headache for the Duluth school district.
Construction workers have hauled away 5,500 cubic yards of ash mixed with whole and broken glass bottles and shards of pottery and jugs from the top 2 feet of earth -- much of it from the 1800s and early 1900s, said Kerry Leider, property and risk manager for the Duluth school district. There were Depression glass, beer bottles with cork-tops and Bridgeman's milk bottles,
"There was quite of bit of stuff that was still whole," Leider said. "People were coming into the site at night and sifting through the pile of ash."
The bottles and pottery have been picked through and taken, workers at the site, 1027 N. Eighth Ave. E., said recently.
The dump roughly followed the route of the old, covered Grey's Creek bed -- now with a culvert in place -- from East 11th Street down to East 10th Street.
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Leider estimated the cost of removal added about $300,000 in unexpected costs to the $20 million project. The contingency amount for the Myers-Wilkins project is $452,000, and the dump costs are covered by that.
It's not clear when or why the dump was created.
Leider couldn't find the dump in old school plans, and a local historian couldn't find it on old maps. Eric Shaffer, chief engineer of utilities for the city of Duluth, wasn't aware of a former dump on the site.
The former Ulysses S. Grant School was built in 1918. At the time, said Duluth historian Maryanne Norton, the site had one house north of it. The site was chosen, a newspaper article said, "because it was beautiful," Norton related.
She noted that in 1902 a city gravel pit was two blocks from the site. Otherwise, maps from the era show it to be vacant land. A Duluth News Tribune story from 1915 cites scrap heaps and rubbish and ash piles throughout the city.
"Between Seventeenth and Eighteenth avenues East, on London Road, on the upper side of the street, there is a wide empty lot piled up with ashes and loose dirt," the story says. "At Eleventh Avenue East and Second Street there is much rubbish and what looks to be an open sewer."
An 1882 Duluth Daily Tribune story cites a "large hole" ... "dug on the south side of East Superior street, near Chester creek, in which all the refuse of the city must hereafter be dumped."
Lowlands and ravines were popular dumps sites in the late 18th century and early 19th century, when garbage was often burned and covered with dirt. When construction for the $200,000 Grant school began in 1918, "there was not a lot of concern for hazardous materials," Leider said. "They probably thought nothing of burying it as long as grass would grow."
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When Bossardt Corp., which is contracted for the school project, had the ash material analyzed, the level of lead was high enough to require disposal, Leider said. Because crews were putting in a new storm sewer, water line and relocating the gas line, the ash was replaced with more stable material.
The material isn't hazardous enough to qualify for any special funding.
Ash was found in the Myers-Wilkins parking lot, in the new bus turn-around area in front of the school, and on East 11th Street. Leider said the same material was found about six years ago during the nearby Grant Recreation Center expansion.
This is the first time workers have encountered anything like a dump site at any of the schools during construction work for the long-range facilities plan. The only other similar surprise was at the new Laura MacArthur site, Leider said, where an old church foundation was discovered that hadn't been included in land records for the site.
