ARLINGTON — They found shoes, old pennies, buttons, broken plates and a pipe that looks like something Sherlock Holmes would have smoked.
An archaeological team excavated a 115-year-old outhouse in Arlington near the Stillaguamish River where the city is now planning to expand its sewer treatment plant.
About 8,700 artifacts were recovered from the archaeological dig, which cost $53,000 and was required by the state as part of a grant requirement.
Other items found in the old privy included medicine bottles, original Mason jars and a clay flute from the 1879 Sydney, Australia, World’s Fair.
Hired by the city, Northwest Archaeological Associates excavated, cleaned, analyzed and cataloged the artifacts, which now will be sent to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. The museum is the state’s storage facility for archaeological artifacts.
The city hopes later to arrange to have some of the artifacts permanently lent to the Stillaguamish Valley Pioneer Museum, city utilities manager James Kelly said.
In January, a 5-foot-by-5-foot pit was excavated and workers sifted more than 200 cubic feet of material, layer by layer, through a ¼-inch mesh screen to find the artifacts.
The archaeologists who investigated the privy figure that the outhouse was part of the home of Calvin and Mertella Teager, who lived on the site near the Stillaguamish River in the late 19th century. Records show that he was a doctor and a dentist and that she was a pharmacist and a schoolteacher.
Why would archaeologists get excited about an outhouse pit?
An intact privy can provide valuable economic, historical and social information, said Bill White, who was part of the archaeological team from the Seattle-based Northwest Archaeological Associates.
In the years before indoor plumbing, outhouse toilets often doubled as garbage dumps. Sometimes things accidentally fell through the privy hole. Other times material was tossed in as part of the fill when a privy was closed and the outhouse moved to another site, White said.
The archaeologists also looked for any evidence of American Indian artifacts on the city’s property but nothing was found, Kelly said.
Any municipal building project using state funding must also include an archaeological dig, Kelly said. Archeological sites are protected and can’t be disturbed without a permit issued by the state.
The privy was in the middle of the building site for the $33.1 million sewage treatment plant expansion, Kelly said.
The city’s goal is to complete the improvements by fall 2010.
The technologically advanced improvements to the sewer treatment facility will help the plant meet stricter environmental standards and will be able to treat twice as much sewage waste as the city treats now, Kelly said.
The improvements are expected to help Arlington accommodate population growth. City planners predict Arlington’s population will nearly double to around 30,000 by 2025.
Treated sewage from Arlington flows into the Stillaguamish River and the city is working to keep the Stillaguamish River — and the entire Puget Sound region — clean, Kelly said.
After the sewer treatment plant is built, who knows what archeologists will find in it 115 years from now?
Reporter Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427 or gfiege@heraldnet.com.
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