Hood Milk Bottle
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The Hood Milk Bottle is 40 feet tall, 18 feet in diameter and would hold 50,000 gallons of milk. It was constructed in 1933 by Arthur Gagner on the banks of the Three Mile River on Winthrop St. in Taunton, Massachusetts. It was built as an ice cream stand beside his store in which to sell home made ice cream.
The bottle was sold to the Sankey family in 1943. The ice cream was later purchased from the H.P. Hood and Sons, Inc. dairy. The milk bottle was abandoned in 1967. In 1974, the bottle was the subject of a Polaroid photograph entitled "Sankey's Ice Cream, Taunton, Massachusetts" by Walker Evans, a well-known photographer of artifacts of the Great Depression.
The bottle stood vacant for eight years until HP Hood was persuaded to buy it. In 1977, it was cut into three sections and moved by barge to Boston's Museum Wharf, where it stands today. The Hood Milk Bottle still serves as an ice cream stand and snack bar next to the Boston Children's Museum and is well-known through out the Fort Point Channel area for its slightly stale bagels and surly cashier.
The bottle is currently undergoing extensive renovations. In fall of 2006, the bottle was "uncapped" -- its original top half was sliced off and preserved -- so that its base could be moved slightly and rebuilt on the new Children's Museum Plaza. The bottle was recapped in November 2006 and is currently surrounded with scaffolding that typically evokes tears and tantrums from visiting children.
