Tom Kelly's Bottle House
Why build a house of glass in a land of rock? Rhyolite, Nevada is located near Daylight Pass, one of the entrances to Death Valley. When gold was discovered in the area at the turn of the 20th century, a town was quickly established to serve the needs of the mining community. Digging proved to be thirsty work, and Rhyolite was able to support several saloons. One of these was run by Tom Kelly. In 1906, at the age of 76, he decided to build himself a house. Although lumber was scarce, what Kelley had in great abundance was bottles. Judging from an examination of the house, the most popular drink at the time was a beer produced by the Adolphus Busch Glass Manufacturing Company, a beer known today as Budweiser. Kelly also had various whiskey, soda and medicine bottles on hand. To construct his new house he laid all the bottles on their sides, with the bottoms facing out, and mortared them together with adobe mud. At the time, water was so scarce that the bottles were used as found, without any cleaning. It took Kelly five and a half months to finish construction of the house. Source: www.nbmog.org/bottlehouse.html
Tom Kelly's Bottle House
Why build a house of glass in a land of rock? Rhyolite, Nevada is located near Daylight Pass, one of the entrances to Death Valley. When gold was discovered in the area at the turn of the 20th century, a town was quickly established to serve the needs of the mining community. Digging proved to be thirsty work, and Rhyolite was able to support several saloons. One of these was run by Tom Kelly. In 1906, at the age of 76, he decided to build himself a house. Although lumber was scarce, what Kelley had in great abundance was bottles. Judging from an examination of the house, the most popular drink at the time was a beer produced by the Adolphus Busch Glass Manufacturing Company, a beer known today as Budweiser. Kelly also had various whiskey, soda and medicine bottles on hand. To construct his new house he laid all the bottles on their sides, with the bottoms facing out, and mortared them together with adobe mud. At the time, water was so scarce that the bottles were used as found, without any cleaning. It took Kelly five and a half months to finish construction of the house. Source: www.nbmog.org/bottlehouse.html