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Title
Grandmother displays bottle 'Round House
Alternative Title
Valley Times Photo Collection
Contributor
This project was supported in whole or in part by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act, administered in California by the State Librarian
Made accessible through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation and Photo Friends
Date Created and/or Issued
1961
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Photograph was edited for publication purposes
Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village, located at 4595 Cochran Street in Simi Valley was built by Tressa 'Grandma' Prisbrey who began construction on her one-third acre lot in 1956 when she was sixty-years-old. She began building so that she would have a place to house her collection of 17,000 commemorative pencils and continued building for another 25 years using recycled bottles and other materials found at a local dump. The end result was a whimsical village of wishing wells, mosaic walkways, fountains, shrines, and 15 structures, including the 'Round House,' 'Dolls Head Shrine', and the 'Leaning Tower of Bottle Village.' Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and in 1981 was declared California Historical Landmark No. 939.
Photograph article dated June 28, 1961 partially reads, "A 65-year-old Simi Valley great-grandmother, who still believes that 'poverty is the mother of invention,' is the architect and contractor responsible for the only complete village made of bottles. Several years ago, Mrs. Tressa Prisbrey lacked the funds to build a needed retaining wall 20 feet long. The result of her 'poverty' and ingenuity was a wall consisting of more than 2,000 bottles and the beginning of Bottle Village...More than half a million assorted bottles have been put together to build structures which continue to delight color photographers and amaze manufacturers."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;26 x 21 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00136080
Valley Times Collection
HCNVT_d042_f35_i30
CARL0005632003
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/66322
Subject
Prisbrey, Tressa
Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Village
Folk art--California--Simi Valley
Bottles in art
Bottles--California--Simi Valley
Mosaics--California--Simi Valley
Pavements, Mosaic--California--Simi Valley
Folk artists--California--Simi Valley
Women artists--California--Simi Valley
Architects--California--Simi Valley
Women architects--California--Simi Valley
Older people--California--Simi Valley
Women--California--Simi Valley
Buildings--California--Simi Valley
Historic buildings--California--Simi Valley
California Historical Landmarks
Simi Valley (Calif.)
Portrait photographs
Valley Times Collection photographs
Time Period
1941-1950

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