To date, I've found 7 intact pharmacy bottles while exploring what lies 3'-4' beneath the surface of my yard. I found all 7 in the same general area, just east of where the property's original shed sat. 

I've found buried debris all over the yard, almost all of it a random assortment of brick, limestone, and busted glass (but there's also been marbles, kitchenware, rusty metal, etc.), so I was surprised to find an intact bottle, let alone 7. Until then, I kind of figured dirt had been added to the yard at some time, maybe to level the north portion (today it sits about 5' above the alley and is held in place by a brick retaining wall), and all the junk just came with it.

But the first pharmacy bottle I pulled out was embossed and, after a little homework, it turns out that the bottle came from a pharmacy right down the street. That's too close to home; I'm now convinced that the buried items once belonged to long ago owners of my house.  

E. (Ernst/Ernest) H. Graul was a St. Louis pharmacist in the early part of the 20th century, having graduated from the St. Louis College of Pharamacy. His first professional venture was as a clerk in his brother William's pharmacy at 2901 Cherokee and in 1907, along with a brother-in-law, Ernst and William opened the Graul-Rudi Pharmacy at 3156 Shenandoah.   

In going from 2901 Cherokee to the southeast corner of Compton and Shenandoah, which is a little over a mile to the north, it's possible that Ernst and co. wanted to capitalize on the deep pockets that had been attracted to the recently developed Compton Heights neighborhood.

Ernst remained a partner in the Graul-Rudi Pharmacy until 1912, when he opened his own pharmacy at 2266 S. Compton (The Lipp Building), or the northeast corner of Compton and Shenandoah. At the time, the 2-story building that housed 2266 was new construction; it didn't exist as of the 1903 Sanborn Map. An updated version of the 1903 map is shown below. 

Ernst operated out of this storefront until about 1919. As this is the only period of time I can identify E. H. Graul as a sole proprietor of a pharmacy, I'm confident that the the bottle I found in the yard was purchased from that pharmacy sometime between 1912 and 1919. 

After that, Graul moved to Florida and gave up the pharmacy trade in favor of growing fruit. He would remain a resident of Florida for the remainder of his life, dying there in 1959 at the age of 76.   

I found a lot of information on E. H. Graul, but much of it was the same few mentions over and over and over. 100+ years ago, corner drug stores were common and there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy about most of them, or their owners. The lack of mentions in the local papers of the day tells me that Ernst H. Graul lived a quiet, pedestrian life. 

I've walked past 2266 S. Compton hundreds of times with the dogs. The Lipp Building is fully occupied but without much commercial pedestrian activity.

100+ years ago, however, the Lipp Building was home to a number of businesses - a barber, a tailor, and a milliner - that undoubtedly served, regularly, a fair number of nearby residents. It also had a 5-lane bowling alley in the basement, which explains the building's unusual street level basement access on Shenandoah.   

And, it had E. H. Graul's drug store. I'm glad I found a little chunk of its history buried in my yard.   ​

On Sunday, after inches and inches and inches of rain the preceding few days, I went back outside and continued my hunt for glass in the yard, which was a swampy mess. 

Due to the conditions I decided to stick close to the property line on the east. I've pulled a ton of stuff out of there in the past, but it's been busted up brick and limestone scraps, nothing too exciting. Having discovered the underground wall just beyond the oak tree in the pic, I thought maybe I should repeat past digs -- but dig deeper. 

At first, it was more of the same, old bricks and little rock scraps.

I also added to my quickly-growing baby limestone farm (the big boy limestone farm is elsewhere on the property, and it's MOUNTAINOUS). The rain cleaned off what I'd found previously, the muddy stuff is what I pulled out of the ground on Sunday.

During the digging I made an unremarkable discovery: I found an old steel fence post (or, what was left of it). It's not OLD old, and comparable items can be bought right off the shelf at big box stores today, but after finding a few more, it's pretty safe to say they're the remnants of the previous iteration of what's now a chain link fence. 

On the other hand, finding the fence posts -- 3 of 'em, all about 8 ft apart and still buried in place -- is why I find the yard excavation so much fun: I never know what I'm going to find, but I'm probably going to find *something*.

A few shovel pokes later, I did.   

After a delicate extraction, some careful muck removal, ​and a little cleanup, this turned out to be a pretty neat little score.

The only embossing on the big fragment was "ER & MEINHA", but that was more than enough for the internet to tell me that it was (what's left of) a soda water bottle, sold by the Meyer - Meinhardt Soda Water Company. Let's see what we can find out on the company...

The Meyer - Meinhardt Soda Water Company began around 1890 and was a partnership between Frederick W. Meyer (secretary) and Charles Meinhardt (president). For the first few years of operation, the business was housed at 1550 S. 7th Street, almost directly across 7th Street from Soulard Market. 

Newspapers of the time indicate that the humble structure was home to soda water companies as far back as 1875. 

The partnership between Meyer and Meinhardt was short-lived; Charles Meinhardt left the company in 1892 and ventured into the grocery business.

Despite Meinhardt's exit, the company carried on under its original name. Around 1897, the business moved to 211-213 St. George Street, an area (Kosciusko Neighborhood) that is now a wasteland of nondescript low-rise industrial/commercial buildings and asphalt parking lots. Almost nothing remains of St. George Street today, aside from a stubby half-block stretch.  

The business continued operations until around 1912 and appears to have been relatively profitable; records indicate that Frederick Meyer was an accomplished businessman and one who gave back to the community on many occasions. 

​For example, his company regularly contributed to the annual Christmas Fund/Festival:

​In 1906, Meyer formed the Missouri Bottlers Association. A year later, he was elected president of the newly formed Consolidated Soda and Mineral Water Co.:

Meyer died in 1918 at the age of 55, but it seems like he was able to accomplish quite a bit in those 55 years.

I wish the bottle had been intact, and that I had been able to find out more about the company, but I'm more than happy to have found a little slice of its history buried in my yard.