Soda Bottles of Yankton D.T. (and S.D.)

In my recent posts on breweries of Yankton D.T. (Dakota Territory for those who are coming in late) I was reminded of the recurring if ill advised efforts to impose a "Dry" status on that frisky section of the Great Frontier.  It was somewhat similar to the situation in next door Iowa, and had the same results.  Ultimate failure but a short term boon to a few niche industries.  Soda bottlers for one.

The first soda bottler of Yankton, indeed, in the entire Territory, was a certain F. Schnauber.  Fred, or Fritz to his pals, arrived early.  His bottling works was begun in 1869, but a year earlier he was running ads for his "Fruit and Candy Store...and First Class Oyster Saloon". 

Sometimes being a Pioneer does not make for lasting fame.  Despite being a very prominent citizen - and he was the usual trifecta of Judge, Legislator and Grand Master of the local Odd Fellows Lodge - there is not that much accessible info on Fritz. 

He put up soda water in a variety of bottles including this really nice cobalt blue 1870's specimen.  The embossed letters have been highlighted for better visibility.  Note that it has the letters D.T. for Dakota Territory, the predecessor to modern day North and South Dakota.  This and similar bottles are highly valued by collectors.  

As a side business, or maybe his main revenue stream, Schnauber also had an ice house.  These were very necessary in the days before refrigerators.  An 1878 newspaper article gives the following stats for Schnauber:  "11,741 dozen bottles of soda and seventy five dozen bottles of seltzer."



Some later examples of Schnauber's bottles list "& Sons", but the business did not go to any of them, but to a fellow named Peter Binder. 

Binder came to town in a rather interesting fashion.  In 1873 General George Custer and the 7th Cavalry stopped in Yankton on their way west to permanent quarters at Fort Abraham Lincoln. Peter Binder was one of the horse handlers although it may have been in a civilian capacity.  As his grand daughter recalls it, Binder got drunk and missed the departure of the 7th to what would ultimately prove to be an ill starred future.  History also records a severe blizzard and much illness associated with the April '73 stop over so there could have been other factors involved.

In any event Binder stayed and became an employee of Fred Schnauber.  In 1903 he bought the business.  He and his sons continued in the related ventures of ice, soda pop and ice cream until 1966.  

Not a bad run for the combined venture.  Almost a century. Once many years ago when I visited Yankton I found an F.Schnauber Yankton Dak bottle sticking out of the side of an embankment.  I traded it to a very appreciative collector of Territorial items.

Another Yankton bottler got started just a bit later and did not stick around for very long. From an 1878 edition of the Yankton Press and Dakotan:

According to an 1881 history that admittedly is a bit loose with dates, William Heselton was born in Skowhegan Maine in 1850.  He "went west" in 1876 spending a couple of years in California before coming to Yankton.  He seems to have only been there from 1878 to 1880 before moving to Parker D.T. where he ran a saloon.  Bottles from his "Yankton Bottling Works" are very rare and the available photos are few and grainy.  The same article that gave stats for Schnauber in 1878 had this to say about Heselton: "...began business in the spring of 1878, puts of foreign made goods and has since its opening placed upon the market 1,400 dozen bottles of beer, 3,905 gallons of cider, 11,524 dozen bottles of soda, 48 dozen bottles of ale, 24 dozen bottles of porter, and 67 dozen bottles of seltzer."

Yankton had the advantage of being an early settled city in Dakota Territory and was even the Capitol until the status was "stolen" in 1883.  But then it became something of a backwater.  Steamboat travel on the Missouri River had been superseded by the arrival of railroads and the many fiscal benefits of being a government center dried up.  So there was a search for new ventures among which, in 1890, was America's largest  cement factory on the edge of town.  This too did not last for all that long, but long enough for the town to acquire a new nick name, one that appeared on the bottles of another company.

The Cement City Bottling Works was started by a man named M.ONeill.  It is known to have been in business as early as 1898.  By 1903 it was being operated by an A.P. Johnson.

I've had a fair mosey about early maps of Yankton and did come across one other "possible" soda bottler. The earliest detailed Sanborn map is from 1886.  It shows a structure at the foot of Walnut Street that is titled Adler and Ohlman's Steam Bottling Works.  The notation indicates it is "closed during winter months" and does show a large ice house.

Adler and Ohlman was an early wholesale liquor dealer in Yankton.  "Steam Bottling Works" is an ambiguous term just indicating steam power for the machinery.  Schnauber called his establishment - which clearly only bottled pop - something very similar.

I suspect Adler and Ohlman were bottling beer.  The 1891 map again shows an ice house but the adjacent structure is simply labeled "beer".  This location along the levee and railroad tracks was a popular spot for several breweries from elsewhere to have their "agencies", basically refrigerated warehouse space where kegs would be stored and bottled beer put up. In fact ads of about this time period indicate that Adler and Ohlman were agents and bottlers for the Joseph Schlitz brewery of Milwaukee.  In 1878 they sold 1,750 barrels, or 35 car loads.

But given the chronic uncertainty of Prohibition in Dakota, and the less distinct cut off between alcoholic and non alcoholic drinkables, it is somewhat plausible that Adler and Ohlman bottled soda as well.

Several of the images shown here came from an on line compilation of soda bottles.  Hutchbook is an impressive compendium of soda bottles from the 1880 to 1915 time span and is worth a look to those interested in such things.