During the 1880s through early 1900s, the city of Tallapoosa in Carroll County was a burgeoning manufacturing center and location of vineyards.

Mountain City Glassworks opened in 1889, then was renamed as the Piedmont Glass Company in 1891. By the end of the decade the company was known as Dixie Glass Works. This company made wine bottles and other glass containers for alcohol based liquids, and ultimately closed in 1918.

In 1908, the passage of prohibition laws by the Georgia Legislature made it illegal for the use of picnic flasks because the extracts used inside the bottles contained alcohol.

The glass bottle in this collection dates to approximately 1906 and was used for extracts and medicine. It is a hand blown flask known as a picnic flask. This flask, in a box of many flasks, was moved by train into Atlanta sometime around that time. Unusable because of the Georgia prohibition laws, this bottle was stored for decades in the Atlanta Gulch, accumulating soot from the burning coal of passing trains. Don Lillie, a master glassblower in Smyrna, Georgia acquired the bottle in the 1970s.