Treasure Hunter Finds Rare Bottle By Steve Hathcock I got an email last week from an old time metal detectorist who hunted Boca Chica Beach awhile back. “Bob” had found an unusual bottle and wrote to ask; “What is it?” Here is the Email; Hi: We found this bottle along the Rio Grande River a while back and were wondering if you could tell us what it was used for and if it has any value. Also, Can you tell me about a lost city that is supposedly somewhere near the mouth of the river? Thanks “Digger Bob.” My Reply: The bottle you found is an old ceramic or “stoneware beer bottle.” In Colonial days, beer was delivered in barrels and consumed at the tavern. As our country grew, so did the demand for beer. The bigger cities would have had their own breweries by the 1860's but the smaller outlying burgs had to have theirs hauled in by wagon. Shipping costs would have been prohibitive though, and bottling of beer as a way distribution came into fashion during the Civil War. A good place to hunt bottles is in the bay in front of the Pirates Landing Restaurant in Port Isabel. Zachory Taylor's troops constructed Fort Polk on this site at the onset of the Mexican War in 1846. In later years, wharves extending a mile into the Laguna Madre were built to facilitate the unloading of goods bound for the interior. The lost city you are talking about could very likely be either Bagdad Mexico or Clarksville on the American side of the river. Both of these cities reached the peak of their prominence during the War Between the States. Bagdad, was a port of entry serving northern Mexico and was also a gathering spot for European merchants anxious to buy southern cotton. Men like Richard King founder of the King Ranch made fortunes smuggling cotton across the river where it sold for as much as $1.25 a pound. Bagdad was a wide open city serving the needs of adventurers and outlaws from around the world. Clarksville, on the other hand, was a much quieter community. It boasted a river boat landing (that was seldom used during the war) an observatory for watching movement on the south side of the river and several dozen assorted shacks and shanties.   A friend of mine stumbled across the remains of an old cistern a couple years back while looking for Clarksville on the American side of the river and near the mouth of the Rio Grande. On a hunch, he began digging in the soft clay and before the day was finished he had uncovered over thirty stoneware beer bottles, dozens of champagne bottles, an old inkwell, and a couple of almost intact pieces of fine china. The rarity of the day though was a small squatty looking emerald green bottle measuring about 6 inches in length. Embossed on one side is the name “E. McIntyre” and on the other side is “Mineral Water.” What makes this particular bottle rare is the fact that McIntyre bottled his mineral water for only one year before selling out to F.A. Conant who added the words “252 Girod Street New Orleans” to the bottles embossment. Troops landing at Brazos Santiago during the onset of the Mexican War carried these little bottles in their knap sacks and it is not uncommon to find them at battlefield sites. An unbroken specimen in fine condition could easily fetch upwards of $800.00 on today's market.