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VOL. 03, NO. 44
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WHITE BEAR LAKE — If Mark Youngblood knocks on your door wanting to investigate your backyard, you may want to answer in the affirmative. The White Bear Lake resident, 52, is an expert in finding historic artifacts on residential properties — with a specific slant. The longtime treasure hunter knows how to locate old privy pits, excavating the sometimes-valuable vintage bottles and antiques buried there before restoring the landscape to it’s original state. Sure he gets grimy, but only from dirt. Over hundreds of digs, Youngblood has encoun-
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tered only two pits that contained less-decomposed matter. In return for the right of way, the homeowners keep part of the findings as mementoes related to their home’s history. These days Youngblood, who works as a self-employed metal scrapper by day, is in it for the thrill of the hunt and the chance to find specific collectors’ items on his bucket list. The mother lode? That would be a vintage bottle bearing a White Bear Lake embossment. He discusses his hobby in a presentation at the Warden’s House Museum in Stillwater Sunday, Aug. 16. Youngblood estimated he’s completed nearly 1,000 digs throughout Minnesota,
Wisconsin and Illinois, 70 to 80 so far this year. Helping him gain permission through multiple property owners is that he and Princeton-based accomplice Brian Mann are somewhat well known in the field after being featured in regional media outlets. His favorite finds through the years? “The ones I like best are worth more to me than money. There have been several one-of-a-kind bottles. But recently I’ve been into early soda bottles I found in Menomonie, Wisconsin and coffin whiskey bottles — that refers to the shape of the bottle — embossed with the proprietor’s name.” Bottles aren’t the only trea-
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sures in the pits, considering latrines were the all-purpose disposal systems of the day. Youngblood has found dentures, breast pumps, glass buttons, doll’s heads and worn-out shoes, some of which likely fell in accidentally back then. Youngblood was bitten by the bottle collecting bug shortly after moving to White Bear Lake at around age 7. Collecting aluminum cans for profit in the woods near Dellwood, he began to find interesting vintage bottles and collectible beer cans. Eventually the Mariner High School grad moved on to scavenging at construction sites and dumps like one formerly off Highway 96.
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