Upper Peninsula Bottling Works (Hill & Bietila)

05 Jan 2022, last revised 10 Jun 2024

With only two known bottles, Hill & Bietila's bottling works was seemingly short-lived. Expectedly, we could not find the Upper Peninsula Bottling Works with Hill & Bietila as proprietors listed in the Polk directories.

Newspaper ad - Sep 1910

In Jul 1910, "John Hill and Jacob Bietala" purchased the "Upper Peninsula Works", which was located on Pine St. and was "organized about three years ago" (1). Jos. James' bottling works was located on Pine St., but it existed from at least 1887 (6) and it was sold to Beiswanger & Westerberg in Feb 1910 (2). The Upper Peninsula Bottling Co. was also located on Pine St. (3). Further research revealed that the Upper Peninsula Bottling Co. was called a "Bottling Works" interchangeably with "Bottling Co.", and it was organized two years prior as a stock corporation (7). Thus, it appears Hill & Bietila purchased the Upper Peninsula Bottling Co.

They planned to conduct the business as it was formerly (1). In Sep 1910, they were listed with other Calumet and Laurium bottlers in a notice of price increases due to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. We then found no other mention of their existence. They were not inspected by the Michigan Department of Labor in Sep - Nov 1910 when other Calumet businesses were inspected (5). We could not find them in the 1910 U.S. Federal Census as bottlers. They were not listed in the 1912 directory (4). We are left with two rare bottles from their brief existence as bottlers in the Copper Country.

Citations

1. anonymous. (1910, Jul 08). U. P. Bottling Works sold. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 5.
2. anonymous. (1910, Feb 01). Local brevities. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 8.
3. R. L. Polk & Co. 1910. 1910 Calumet, Houghton, Hancock and Laurium Directory. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
4. R. L. Polk & Co. 1912. 1912 Calumet, Hancock, Houghton and Laurium Directory. R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers. Detroit, MI.
5. 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.
6. R. L. Polk & Co. 1887. Michigan State Gazetteer and Business Directory 1887-88. R. L. Polk & Co. Detroit, MI.
7. anonymous. (1908, Mar 25). A new bottling company. The Calumet News (Calumet, MI). p. 8.