Spring Time in Wheeling, Continued…

---

Nothing says spring quite so clearly as an April day at the old ballpark, with the sun shining warmly on your face and tiny, cool bubbles bursting on the tip of your nose as you raise an ice cold bottle of sweet soda pop to your lips for a refreshing drink. Well, that’s our theory anyway, as we celebrate spring with a new exhibit of baseball artifacts combined with Thad Podratsky’s amazing collection of early Wheeling pop bottles — on display now at the Ohio County Public Library. As a complement to this display, we present a two-part post on the history of baseball and pop bottling in old Wheeling.
▶ Read Part 1: “A Social Game of Ball”

---

Part 2: The Pop-Post

---

“I do Sierra Mist commercials not because they pay me a lot of money or because it only takes a couple of days. I do it because I have a respect for all sodas and I like to communicate that. Some people say soda, some people say pop. Where I’m from in Indiana they called it breakfast.”
-Comedian Jim Gaffigan

“Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, sermons and soda water the day after.”
-Lord Byron

---

An Englishman, a southerner, a New Yorker, a Wheelingite, and an Irishman walk up to a concession stand at a baseball game. The Englishman orders a “fizzy drink.” After snickering, the southerner orders a “Coke.” The New Yorker sneers and orders a “Soda.” The Wheelingite snorts, “Yuns are all crazy. It’s a Pop!”

After all the others have their orders, the Irishman says, “I’ll have a glass of ‘Minerals.’ Swish it around and when the glass is clean, pour the stuff out and fill the glass with whiskey.”

Bad jokes aside, this seemingly innocuous nomenclature debate has divided a nation. “Soda?” Or “Pop?” Or even just,”Coke?” You can weigh in here.

So who is right? Well, maybe this guy. Or maybe this guy.

But the truth is, my grandmother settled the issue back in the seventies.

Click to enlarge.

Whatever you call it, we Americans have always loved our carbonated sugar waters, and Wheeling was always been on board. Back in the day, we bottled our own product, right here in town—lots of it. And super-collector Thad Podratsky has the Wheeling embossed/labeled/painted bottles to prove it.

---

Bottle Town

---

In it’s manufacturing prime, Wheeling could credibly lay claim to titles like Nail City and Stogie Town. It was also a city well known, at one time or another, for products like tile, pottery, indigo-dyed cloth, beer, chewing tobacco, steel, and glass.

But Wheeling was also once home to a surprisingly large number of soft drink bottling works.

Bottle Town?

Well. why not?

---

Squat Sodas

---

Before plastic bottles and metal cans, soda was sold in glass bottles, the varying colors, sizes and shapes of which make them beautiful little works of commercial art, especially when compared to their modern counterparts.

“Squat Soda” bottles are the oldest style of American beverage bottle. They were used in the Victorian Era and are often dark green or aqua green in color but can also be cobalt blue, amber, or topaz. Samples in this exhibit include: J. Lukens, L. Snider, Geo. Matthews, C. & A. Matthews, and Chris Siebke Birch Beer, all of Wheeling.

---

Hutchinson Bottles

---

“Hutchinson Soda” bottles were invented in 1879 by Charles G. Hutchinson, who patented a spring stopper.

 

The spring stoppers replaced corks and were later replaced themselves by crown top caps. Hutchinson bottles in this display include Geo. Matthews, Speidel Bros, E. F. Hartmann, W.L. Rose & Co., Magnesia Spring, Co., L. Auth, Meyer & Radcliffe, Geo. Cornette & Co., and Jas. S. Lynch, all of Wheeling.

---

Crown Top Caps

---

Patented by William Painter in 1892, the crown cork or crown top cap had 24 metal teeth and a cork seal. After a lot of scarred hands, Painter also invented the bottle opener in 1894.

---

“Painted Pops”

---

Applied Color Labels or ACL Bottles (also known as “Painted Pops”) first appeared around 1936 and by the mid-1950s were very common, due to improvements in manufacturing. The “paint” was actually ground colored glass, silk-screened and baked onto the outside of the bottle.

---

Stratford Magnesia Springs

---

Opened on May 1, 1907 in Woodsdale, the grand Stratford Hotel was built as a spa resort near a natural “saline-chalybeate” spring said to have “certain healing powers,” powers to cure everything from headaches, indigestion, and rheumatism to “kidney trouble” and even “bad teeth.” In addition to being used to make carbonated beverages, the pure spring water was bottled and sold as an “invigorating and health giving” tonic. Stratford Springs Bottling Company was thus an outgrowth of the hotel. The hotel burned down in 1918, but the spring house, where the water and carbonated beverages were made by the Stratford Magnesia Springs Co., survived the fire and continued to bottle product for many years.

---

Shipley Ironbrew Soda and Iron Brew Baseball Club

---

“Otherwise, the team is elegance itself in its striped knee breeches and loose shirts, colored stockings and peaked caps. Except for brief moments of sliding, you can see them all in one eyeful, unlike the muddy hecatombs of football. To watch a football game is to be in prolonged neurotic doubt as to what you’re seeing. It’s more like an emergency happening at a distance than a game. I don’t wonder the spectators take to drink. Who has ever seen a baseball fan drinking within the meaning of the act? He wants all his senses sharp and clear, his eyesight above all. He gulps down soda pop, which is a harmless way of replenishing his energy by the ingestion of sugar diluted in water and colored pink.”

-From God’s Country and Mine By Jacques Barzun

Typifying the many company-sponsored teams in Wheeling at the turn of the century, S.J. Shipley’s Iron Brew Baseball Club poses with their favorite soft drink, Ironbrew, “the ideal tonic,” circa 1907. Shipley’s bottling company was located at 2121-23 Main Street (later the location of Wheeling Stamping and now Orrick) from about 1900 to 1915.

---

E. F. Hartmann Bottling Works

---

Ernest F. Hartmann started his bottling company at 600 Market Street in North Wheeling in about 1910. The durable business continued soft drink bottling operations until about 1962. This horse drawn delivery wagon carries the slogan “Thirsty? Just Whistle.”

---

A List of Wheeling Bottlers and Sodas Represented in the Exhibit
[Note: Locations and dates of existence are included where available.]

• L. Auth; 2620 Market Street (ca. 1882-?)
• Bludwine Bottling Co.
• Buffalo Beverage Co.
• C.C.B. Co.
• Cherry Smash Bottling Works
• Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Wheeling; 2000 Main Street (1913); 1427 South Street (1919); 2222-24 Water Street (1932); Woodsdale (1949-1970s)
• Geo. Comett & Co.
• Double Cola of WheelingE.F. Hartmann Bottling (Pop-Kola); 600 Market Street; ca. 1910-1962
• Lime Cola Bottling Co.; 33rd & McColloch Street; ca. 1919-1926
• J. Lukens
• Jas. S. Lynch
• Magnesia Spring Co.
• C. & A. Matthews
• Geo. Matthews; 1224 Chapline Street (ca. 1882-1896)
• J.C. McCready Bottler; r. 3408 Chapline Street (ca. 1913-1920s)
• J.L. McNeil & Co.
• Mercer Phillips Bottling Co.
• Meyer & Radcliffe; 6-12th Street (ca. 1896-1904); renamed The Red Cliff Co. (ca. 1905-1920s)
• Nehi of Wheeling (Upper-10)
• O-So of Wheeling (O-So Grape)
• Pure Drink Co.
• M.L. Rose & Co.; 3406 Chapline Street (ca. 1904-1920s)
• Sanitary Bottling Co.
• Seven-Up of Wheeling; 2826 Eoff Street (ca. 1946-1970s)
• Samuel Shia Bottling
• Works; 2129 Main Street
• S.J. Shipley Bottling Works (Shipley Ironbrew); 2121-23 Main Street; ca. 1898-1915
• Chris Siebke (Birch Beer); 17th & Chapline Street (ca. 1882-?)
• L. Snider
• South Side Bottling House

  

• Speidel Brothers; 92-33rd Street (ca. 1896-1914)
• Steiniger Brothers; 98 N 9th (Warwood) (ca. 1930s)
• Stratford Magnesia Springs (Johnny-Bull Root Beer); Brookside Dr., Woodsdale; ca. 1907-1960s
• Tom Collins Jr.; r. 837 National Road (ca. 1940s)
• Trio Beverages (Trio Soda); 149-33rd Street (ca. 1950s-1970)
• Universal Bottling Works
• Vaughan Beverages (Chuk-Ker, Hi-Spot Canada Dry, Mil-Kay Orange Drink, Poya, Spur Canada Dry, Sun-Drop Lemonade ); 915 Grandview (ca. 1940s-1970s)
• Vernor of Wheeling (Vernor Ginger Ale)
• Wheeling Bottling Works

*Note: Wheeling was home to numerous other bottling companies over the years beyond the samples in the exhibit. These included, for example, Liberty Beverage at Eoff and 19th, Crystal Springs in Warwood, and Royal Crown on National Road, just to name a few.

---

Be sure to check out the Baseball & Soda Pop Exhibit, on display at the Ohio County Public Library now through the end of May.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

---