Jeff Springer and his brother, Jim, have spent two decades excavating privies, cisterns, wells and trash pits. They will be in Ottawa this week for an excavation.

Jeff answered questions about his hobby.

Q. How did you get started as a privy digger?

A. Through my brother Jim. When he used to go fishing around our hometown in Iowa he would discover little dumps he would investigate. Later he started going to auctions where he would buy boxes of privy bottles for $1 to $5 just because he was interested. Then one day a guy who was bidding against him asked him if he had ever dug any privies. That sounded pretty interesting, so he started, and that was in 1986. Then in 1987 my dad and I were taking off the back part of our old house and underneath the back porch there were all these whisky jugs and bottles. I was like "Wow, these are cool." Next thing, we got some probes and found four pits.

Q. Is there a method to finding privy pits?

A. Well, we use a probe, like a tile probe, that's one way. But we also look at atlas maps, Sanborn fire insurance maps, old panoramic drawings. It does take quite a few years to get a feeling for where a privy might be.

Q. How does the probe work?

A. When you think you have a likely location you just start probing. If it's virgin soil it's pretty smooth and consistent. When you get into disturbed soil there will start to be layers. Then you start to hit some crunchies -- that's the best way to describe it.

Q. Once you dig the privy out, doesn't it smell bad?

A. Not really, they have been closed for a long, long time. Sometimes the site may have had some water trapped in it and that can make a difference. But typically there is no problem with odor.

Q. I can understand finding old medicine bottles in privies, but what about the other things?

A. Privies also were used for garbage. What people could burn they burned. But other stuff often ended up in the privy.

Q. I understand one of the locations you dug was where the Civil War era Fox River Hotel was located at on the north side of Superior Street south of the Illinois & Michigan Canal. How did that go?

A. That was about three years ago. It had been in operation from around 1836 to 1886. There was a privy for women on one side and for men on the other. The men's was the largest. It was stone lined and about 15 feet by 5 and by 5. A lot of stuff was broken, but we got two historic flasks and an 1885 Indian head penny.

Q. Do diggers work with or apart from archaeologists?

A. Digging is a private hobby. But I really like it when diggers and archaeologists can work together. In the past, the archaeologists and the diggers would clash, and I think it's unfortunate that occurred. In a lot of ways their goals are the same. Saving the history, piecing it together and bringing it back to life is really a passion of mine.

Q. What kind of people do you hope to interest in privy digging?

A. One of the big things for me is to get the younger generation interested. It is like an extreme sport. You have to be healthy and able to sometimes devote eight, 10 or 12 hours in a single day to it. But I also want to interest people in general about bottles. They have a lot of history, with their color and styles. Some people end up liking them for their styles. Some of the older bottles are, in my opinion, art.

Q. Do you have a favorite item you have dug out of a privy?

A. Yes, the first bottle I found was for Reed's Bitters. It was in the shape of a lady's leg, about 13 inches tall and amber colored. That first beautiful bottle was the one that got me started in collecting.