Calumet Bottling Works
Harvey Bottling Works

02 Oct 2021, last revised 20 Dec 2023

R. T. Harvey's bottling works was not only the longest running pop company in the Copper Country, but it was also the last pop company in Michigan to operate under its own name and not a franchised brand (1). The bottling works was a family operation for most of its existence (1).

Richard Thomas Harvey was born on 06 Sep 1845 (2) in Cornwall, England (3). According to his obituary, Harvey moved to Canada at the age of 14 and resided in Port Arthur for a short time (34). From Canada, he went to Isle Royale and worked in the mine of the Island Copper Co. (34). The U.S. Federal Census recorded his year of immigration to the U.S. as 1862 (5) or 1865 (4). One winter, Harvey and three companions drove across the ice from Isle Royale and landed one mile from Copper Harbor (34). He then worked for the Aetna, Clarke, and Starborg mines (34). He was well known as a Cornish wrestler and a baseball pitcher (34). In a season, the Clarke baseball team would very frequently walk for about three days all the way to Calumet to play the Calumet team (34). After leaving Clarke, Harvey worked at Central and conducted a boarding house at Delaware (34), but he was also listed as a miner at Delaware when he was married on 15 Sep 1877 (3). In 1888, the family moved to Eagle Harbor (24).

In Jul 1898, Richard purchased Arvid Kemp's pop business in Red Jacket (27). The plan was for his son, George to conduct the business, and if proved successful, he would move the family to Red Jacket (27). Another article referenced his eldest son as the one to conduct the business (28), who would have been Richard H. Harvey (4). Regardless, the business apparently proved successful, since the family promptly moved from Eagle Harbor to Red Jacket.

The 1899 Polk directory listed Richard T. Harvey as bottler and Richard H. Harvey as pop maker (8). The business and residence were specified at 426 Pine St., Calumet (8). The 1900 Sanborn map showed this address to be on the south side of the street, just west of 4th St. As expected, this address was the former location of Isaac Lantto and Kemp & Roberts (7). The map, however, showed the bottling works to be in the front building, whereas previously it was located in the rear building. Sometime in 1899, the bottling works suffered one of "four destructive fires" of the year (29). The damage was $200 and they had no insurance (29). It is unknown if the fire was the reason the bottling works moved to the front building, or if the bottling works was already in the front building and the fire occurred there. In Dec 1900, Harvey announced that he had moved the bottling works from Red Jacket to South Florida St., Laurium (30).

Sanborn map - Sep 1900

Sanborn map - Sep 1917

The 1901 directory was the first to list Richard T. Harvey as proprietor of "Calumet Bottling Works" (9), although the bottles specified this business name from the beginning. In Apr 1901, business was growing steadily and the pop factory installed new machinery and sported a new delivery wagon (31). In Apr 1908, the Harveys made extensive improvements to the factory (25). They installed a new automatic carbonator and a new bottle washer. The water used in manufacturing pop was filtered through a Noxall stone filter and stated to be "absolutely pure". The mixing room for mixing syrups before carbonation was said to be "a model of neatness" and "bespeaks excellent sanitary conditions". The interior of the building was being redecorated in anticipation of a greater summer season than any previous season in its history. Harvey produced the following sodas in 1910: Sarsaparilla, Lemon Soda, Solo Ginger Ale, Imitation Strawberry, and Harvey Brew (13). The company had six employees in 1910 (14), seven in 1912 (15), and five in 1914 (16).

The Polk directory up until 1912 continued to list R. T. Harvey as proprietor (10), but the 1910 U.S. Federal Census listed no occupation for him (5). It appears his sons were fully running the business at that point, with George as manager, Wilmer as bottler, and Chester as driver (5,10). After suffering an illness for about four years (34), R. T. Harvey died on 02 Apr 1915 at the age of 69 and was buried in Lake View Cemetery, Calumet (2). As for Richard H. Harvey, he became manager the Lake Linden Bottling Works in May 1901 (32), and then moved permanently to Chicago in Aug 1902 (35). He resided in Pullman, IL by 1905 (33) and in Chicago by 1908 (6), which is where he later died on 19 Mar 1947 (19).

George's daughter, Sue Adams, described the distribution process in a post on George's Eagle Harbor Web.

My Grandfather would deliver pop to the Keweenaw via the Keweenaw Central Railroad before 1919. He would load the soda onto box cars in Red Jacket and drop it off at Ojibway, Seneca, Vansville, Phoenix, the Casino, the junction for Central, Delaware, Wyoming or Helltown, and Mandan. A team would meet the train at Wyoming and take it on to Copper Harbor. There would be another team waiting at the junction to take the sarsaparilla pop to the Brown Cafe in Wyoming. (Wyoming is near the junction of the Lac La Belle Rd. and US 41.) They named it "Helltown" because of all of the bar fights there. The cafe was owned by Charles Brown and Grandfather would wait at the cafe for the train to turn around at Mandan. Each trip to the Keweenaw took about three hours.

A newspaper article covering the closing of the bottling works explained its former operations (1). The bottling works had storage in the basement, the bottling shop on the second floor, family residence on the third floor, and bottling supplies in the attic. Harvey's pop was famous in the local area and was not distributed further south than Dollar Bay because the Keweenaw residents consumed all that was produced. In later years, Harvey produced gingerale, iron brew, lemon soda, orange, grape, cherry, strawberry, rock and rye, raspberry, and root beer. One of the best sellers was lemon soda, which was used for medicinal purposes and shipped to Mayo Clinic and as far as Arizona.

In the later years, George and Wilmer Harvey ran the business under the firm name, Harvey Bros. (20). Wilmer, who was born on 30 May 1885 at the Delaware Mine (21), moved to California with his family sometime between 1935 and 1940, where he worked as a watchman (22). He then died on 20 Sep 1944 at the age of 59 (23). George, who was born on 30 Aug 1882 at the Delaware Mine (21), continued the business as proprietor (21,24). He was proud that his lemon soda was known throughout the state (24). In 1944, the company was given to two employees, Walter Opland and Clarence Goulette (1). The business finally closed in 1963 (1). George died on 20 Mar 1971 at the age of 88 in Laurium (24).

At some point, the company changed its name from Calumet Bottling Works to Harvey Bottling Works. The first occurrence of "Harvey Bottling Works" that we found was in an ad from Sep 1908. Subsequently, a Harvey Bottling Works bottle has a date code for 1909. However, the company was still listed as "Calumet Bottling Works" in the 1912 Polk directory (10). It was then listed as "Harvey Bottling Works" in the 1916 directory (11). The Harvey Bottling Works bottles have R. T. Harvey stated as proprietor and then without "PROP". Certainly, he would not have been proprietor after his death in 1915, but he may have stopped being proprietor before then.

Newspaper ad - Sep 1908

Newspaper ad - Oct 1908

Newspaper ad - Dec 1912

When someone sees the embossing of CALUMET BOTTLING WORKS, they may naturally think the bottling works was located in Calumet. Even the bottles embossed with HARVEY BOTTLING WORKS state the location as CALUMET, MICH. In actuality, the bottling works was in Calumet for only the first 1-2 years, and then spent the rest of his existence in Laurium. Only the siphons state "Laurium" as the correct location. This confusion may have resulted from Laurium originally being the village of Calumet and Calumet originally being the village of Red Jacket (26). The town name of Laurium was established in 1895 (26), and we first see it used in the 1895 Houghton County Polk directory (12).

ABM soda-bottle label

References

1. anonymous. (1965, Feb 20). Harvey Pop Will Leave Local Scene. The Daily Mining Gazette (Houghton, MI). p. 4.
2. Find a Grave. accessed Sep 2023. Richard Thomas Harvey. findagrave.com/memorial/187922666/richard-thomas-harvey
3. Michigan, U.S., Marriage Records, 1867-1952 (accessed on ancestry.com).
4. U.S. Census Bureau. 1900 United States Federal Census. accessed on ancestry.com.
5. U.S. Census Bureau. 1910 United States Federal Census. accessed on ancestry.com.
6. anonymous. (1908, Aug 06). Laurium Brevities. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 6.
7. R. L. Polk & Co. 1897. Houghton County Directory 1897-98. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
8. R. L. Polk & Co. 1899. Houghton County Directory 1899-1900. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
9. R. L. Polk & Co. 1901. Houghton County Directory 1901-02. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
10. R. L. Polk & Co. 1912. 1912 Calumet, Hancock, Houghton and Laurium Directory. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
11. R. L. Polk & Co. 1916. Houghton County Directory 1916-17. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
12. R. L. Polk & Co. 1895. Houghton County Directory 1895-96. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
13. State of Michigan. 1910. Dairy and Food Department. Bulletin No. 173-178. Jan-June 1910. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co. State Printers. Lansing, MI.
14. State of Michigan Department of Labor. 1911. Second Annual Report of the Department of Labor of the State of Michigan. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers. Lansing, MI.
15. State of Michigan Department of Labor. 1913. Thirtieth Annual Report of the Department of Labor of the State of Michigan. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers. Lansing, MI.
16. State of Michigan Department of Labor. 1915. Thirty-Second Annual Report of the Department of Labor of the State of Michigan. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers. Lansing, MI.
17. State of Michigan Department of Labor. 1916. Thirty-Third Annual Report of the Department of Labor of the State of Michigan. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers. Lansing, MI.
18. Michigan Bureau of Labor and Industrial Statistics. 1917. Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the Department of Labor of the State of Michigan. Wynkoop Hallenbeck Crawford Co., State Printers. Lansing, MI.
19. Illinois, U.S. Deaths and Stillbirths Index, 1916-1947 (accessed on ancestry.com).
20. R. L. Polk & Co. 1930. Polk’s Calumet (Michigan) Directory 1930. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
21. U.S. World War II Draft Registration Card, 1942 (accessed on ancestry.com).
22. U.S. Census Bureau. 1940 United States Federal Census. accessed on ancestry.com.
23. California, U.S. Death Index, 1940-1997 (accessed on ancestry.com).
24. anonymous. (1971, Mar 20). G. H. Harvey, area pioneer, passes today. The Daily Mining Gazette (Houghton, MI). p. 4.
25. anonymous. (1908), Apr 25). Get New Machinery and Improve Their Factory. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 6.
26. Village of Laurium. accessed Feb 2022. Village of Laurium of Michigan. laurium.net/History
27. anonymous. (1898, Jul 28). Keweenaw Co. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 2.
28. anonymous. (1898, Jul 28). Pop Factory Changes Hands. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 5.
29. anonymous. (1900, Feb 07). The Fire Losses. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 4.
30. anonymous. (1900, Dec 15). untitled. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 9.
31. anonymous. (1901, Apr 20). Local Briefs. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 4.
32. anonymous. (1901, May 09). Local Briefs. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 5.
33. anonymous. (1905, Jul 10). Brevities. The Copper Country Evening News (Calumet, MI). p. 7.
34. anonymous. (1915, Apr 03). R. T. Harvey, Old Resident, Dead. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 5.
35. anonymous. (1902, Aug 19). Calumet-Laurium. Hancock Evening Journal (Hancock, MI). p. 5.