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
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
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
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