Reminders of yesterday

Extensive collection of milk bottles keep Joe Kirby connected to his family roots

By Sharon MacGregor
Posted 12/4/19

From about the late 1880’s milk was sold in glass bottles and beginning in the early 1920’s those bottles were made with the dairy farm information right in the glass. Bottles were often …

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Reminders of yesterday

Extensive collection of milk bottles keep Joe Kirby connected to his family roots

Posted

From about the late 1880’s milk was sold in glass bottles and beginning in the early 1920’s those bottles were made with the dairy farm information right in the glass. Bottles were often left on porches in insulated boxes if available and as homeowners began to have their own refrigerators and milk was readily available in stores, the role of the milkman and the need for those glass bottles faded away.

John Davidowsky, owner of the Lakeside Dairy in Newburgh, known as Milkman or Lakeside to friends, had his dairy farm from 1930 – 1969. Starting in 1959, Davidowsky’s stepson, Joe Kirby, began collecting milk bottles.

“I started with the strays, as we call them,” he said. “When we delivered milk, they were the ones that ended up in our boxes. That’s how I started my collection of Orange County milk bottles and now, it’s been about 60 years and I have about 500 bottles in my collection.”

Kirby, who lived in East Coldenham until moving to Arizona in 2012 also explained, “I collect milk bottles because of the history it is tied to including the families that built and ran the dairies in Orange County.”

Over the course of 60 years, Kirby has acquired bottles from the 1800’s, some with tin tops from 1910, Sunny Crest Farms as well as Borden’s Condensed Milk both from Wallkill, and his most prized is of course from Lakeside Dairy.


Organized and methodical, the display is arranged in sets by location origin either Orange County or Arizona, color, and style.

Asked how and where Kirby continues to find new bottles for his extensive collection, he said he used to dig in the dirt at area dumps during good weather when he still lived in New York. Now, he added, “Most of the Orange County ones come from friends who know I collect milk bottles. Some I find on E-Bay and the Arizona ones come mostly from antique malls.”

When looking at the shelves lined with various glass bottles it seems they are the last memorials from a bygone era, and one can imagine the sound they may have made clinking together as they were left in a box by the door. Ironically, today we can subscribe to food and meal delivery services and perhaps the renaissance of the milkman is just over the horizon, but nothing can replace the connection to local history Kirby’s collection represents.