Edward and Katinka Einbeck hadn’t paid Hezekiah W. Whitney for two lots on the northeast corner of 16th Avenue and 8th Street. Sheriff Studley held a foreclosure sale at the sheriff’s office in the courthouse at 2:00 p.m. on December 5, 1878.
Marshall Rean arrested Ed Einbeck on Monday, December 9 for keeping a bowling alley without obtaining a license for one. Einbeck claimed that he always paid the licenses when called on for them and that no license had been required for billiard tables. He stood ready to pay as much license as anybody. Einbeck appeared before Justice Abbott, where he paid a fine of $5.00 and costs; Einbeck appealed. The law stated that the fine should have been $5 for each day. Einbeck obtained a license from the village board “to run a bowling alley on Jackson Street” the following week.
Einbeck delivered a box of his bottled soda, or pop, to the Sentinel office again in June 1879. “Mr. Einbeck is a popular man with the soda drinkers, for he makes excellent “goods.” This was certainly an easy way to get free “advertising.”
The Einbecks lost their oldest son, 11, of diphtheria at 10 p.m. on December 1. Edward, is buried with the family at Greenwood Cemetery. “He was a bright, pleasant boy, and will be missed by his playmates, and is sadly mourned by his family.”
It was shared on June 2, 1880, “Ed. Einbeck’s bottling works in Monroe is one of the established institutions of the town. His bottled sodas, cider, root beer and other mild beverages are having an extensive sale on their own merits.” No more references were found after this that linked Einbeck to billiards, pool, or liquor. It was shared the following week that “an employee in Einbeck’s pop factory had a serious mishap on Saturday morning. “He fell and spilt a part of the contents of a bottle of sulfuric acid on himself, some of the liquid spread over his face, burning it badly. Remedies were applied immediately.”
Einbeck shared on May 11, 1881 that he wanted to sell the complete outfit known as Einbeck’s Pop Manufactory. He was selling 6,000 boxes a season and increasing at that time.
Both Einbeck and his competitor, Mr. Butterfield, shared treats with the Sentinel office in June 1882. The Sentinel shared, “Ed. Einbeck, the lightning pop man, who manufactures bottled pop and furnishes the lightning for nearly all the soda fountains in the country here about, has brought in his regular annual present for the Sentinel office chaps to sample. The pop is first rate, and Edward can rest assured that his benevolence is duly appreciated.”
Peter Wells built a new brick and mortar building on 10th Street just east of the alley behind Hoehn and Weber’s new building in 1884. Einbeck was to occupy one room on the first floor in the west part of that building with Fred Shriner occupying the second floor above Einbeck for his undertaking store.
It was shared on July 30 that, “Ed Einbeck’s little boy had an arm broken by the upsetting of the pop wagon on which he was seated with his father, one day last week.“
The Sentinel shared another free advertisement on July 22, 1885, “Ed Einbeck left samples of ginger ale, lemon, strawberry and sarsaparilla pop, root beer, birch beer and champaign [sic] cider and other varieties belonging to the Sod A. Pop family, and requested only that we give our opinion of these excellent articles. We can cheerfully recommend them, and a visit to Einbeck’s manufactory will convince any one that he uses only pure articles in their manufacture. The tingle is put into them by a machine which injects carbonic acid gas, which we believe is the way all bottled mineral waters are treated, and is not considered deleterious to health. Mr. Einbeck has been engaged in manufacturing bottled soda water, etc., for more than a dozen years, and his goods are in great demand wherever they are known.”
The 1885 Monroe City Directory indicates that Mr. Einbeck was manufacturing pop on the northwest corner of the square, probably in the building that became the Monroe Clinic building more than five decades later. The family resided on the east side of the square, probably on the second floor above Dan Germann’s harness shop as listed in the 1887 directory. A photo of what might be the harness shop appears on page 27 of the Pictorial History of Monroe.
Another short ad appeared on July 6, 1887 which added cream soda to the list of flavors. The ad said that they were for sale everywhere; the wholesale depot was in the basement of Chenoweth’s Block. In July 1889 Ed’s son, Charles, dropped off “a sample bottle of the celebrated Manitou natural mineral water, which is claimed to be the finest sparkling table water in the world. Charlie has been working at the Manitou Springs Colorado for the past year, and says that the demand for the bottled water is great from all parts of the world.”
After dropping off another batch of sodas in July 1890, the Sentinel stated, “the sodas and light summer drinks bottled by this institution are among the best. The factory also keeps the Waukesha mineral water and bottled fruit ciders. It is one of the noted industries of Monroe.”
A short article in the Sentinel in November 1894 stated that Einbeck was in a lawsuit against Mr. Sacker over the ownership of a quantity of pop bottles and boxes. It only stated that the jury in the trial decided in favor of Sacker.
Ed Einbeck, 61, passed away at 10:00 on Tuesday morning, December 20, 1898 after an illness of several weeks from congestion of the lungs. His sons, Charles R., 29, and Hugo, 24, then took over the operation of the business.
Will this be the end of the Monroe Bottling Works?
— Matt Figi is a Monroe resident and a local historian. His column will appear periodically on Saturdays in the Times. He can be reached at mfigi48@tds.net or at 608-325-6503.
