Message in a Bottle Surfaces, 97 Years Later

On June 30, 1915, Selina Pramstaller and Tillie Esper wrote a brief message during a trip to a Michigan amusement park on Harsens Island, sealed it in a bottle, and dropped it in the St. Clair River. Last June, almost exactly 97 years later, diver Dave Leander found it at the bottom of the river—and it just recently came to the attention of the Harsens Island St. Clair Flats Historical Society. "Having a good time at Tashmoo [Park]," the message reads—and the society just so happens to be planning Tashmoo Days, celebrating the park, which closed in 1951.

The bottle, which held cherries or olives before being used as an envelope, wasn't buoyant enough to float, so it "pretty much sunk where they threw it," another diver and president of the Metropolitan Detroit Antique Bottle Club explains to the Detroit Free Press. The president of the historical society is trying to find descendants of Pramstaller and Esper, who wrote the message on the back of a White Star Line deposit ticket and also wrote their addresses in Detroit. If found, he hopes they'll attend Tashmoo Days, where the bottle will be exhibited. (More message in a bottle stories.)