HISTORY FROM OHA: The story of Lee & Green + Salt City Bottling Company

George Raynard Lee and Arthur Green founded Lee & Green in Sleaford, England, in 1881. The two men bottled aerated water at their Sleaford factory, and soon expanded to other English cities — Spalding in 1886; Bourne in 1891; and Skegness in 1899. Along with bottling aerated water, these factories brewed and bottled ginger beer, a fermented alcoholic beverage. Lee & Green bottled and sold its ginger beer in stoneware bottles. As the demand for English–brewed ginger beer increased in the United States, particularly in New York state, Lee & Green opened ginger beer factories in Syracuse and Buffalo in the early 20th century. A brief article appearing in Syracuse’s The Post-Standard newspaper in September 1899 stated that George R. Lee of Bourne, England, was visiting Syracuse for the purpose of opening a soft drink factory in the city. While reconnoitering Syracuse as a possible location for an American ginger beer factory, Lee stayed at the home of his brother-in-law, Nelson G. Anderson, at 102 West Adams St. in Syracuse. George Lee’s business partner, Arthur Green, opened the first American Lee & Green ginger beer factory at 113 Raynor Ave. in Syracuse in 1900. Green appointed Lee’s brother-in-law, Nelson Anderson, to manage the Syracuse factory for Lee & Green. Anderson continued to manage Lee & Green after Salt City Bottling Company purchased it in 1908; however, he left in 1916, then took a job as a liquor store clerk and, afterward, became a sexton at a Syracuse church. A 1901 Syracuse City Directory advertised Lee & Green English-brewed ginger beer offered for sale in stone jugs and brewed under two flags: English and American. A typical Lee & Green stoneware bottle filled with ginger beer in Syracuse also promoted the four English cities in which Lee & Green was manufactured — Sleaford, Spalding, Bourne and Skegness. Lee & Green bottles filled in those four English cities likewise promoted Syracuse and Buffalo. Diamond A Ginger Beer Company made its own ginger beer at 310 North West St. in Syracuse. This company also sold its ginger beer in stoneware bottles and advertised it as English-brewed. Company advertisements placed in The Post-Standard in 1906 promoted Diamond A ginger beer as healthful, good, and pure, honestly brewed and found in good places where drinks were sold. The company encouraged customers to remember the name: Diamond A Ginger Beer. By 1908, a new beverage company, Salt City Bottling Company, had acquired both Lee & Green and Diamond A Ginger Beer Company. That year, Salt City Bottling Company bottled its ginger beer at 310 North West St. in Syracuse, the same location as the former Diamond A Ginger Beer Company. During the following year, in 1909, Salt City Bottling Company moved its operation to the rear of 113 Raynor Ave., the building formerly occupied by Lee & Green. The company’s advertisement at the back of the 1909 Syracuse City Directory declared it was making the English-brewed ginger beers formerly brewed by both the Diamond A Ginger Beer Company and Lee & Green.

By 1911, Salt City Bottling Company was using a new slogan in its advertisements: “The Original Beer ‘With A Pedigree.’” Company officials also boasted that Salt City Bottling Company was the largest ginger beer brewery in America. They invited the proprietors of regional hotels, cafes, restaurants, and saloons to request a sample order of ginger beer. So confident in its ginger beer, the Salt City Bottling Company managers practically guaranteed these hospitality venue proprietors an increase in their profits from ginger beer sales and, as a result, ginger beer sales would create in their customers a “come again” response to the drink. To entice customers to buy their ginger beer, Salt City Bottling Company promoted it as “a real good, pure food beverage.” The company publicized that it would deliver a case of 24 stoneware bottles for 60 cents, which would be $24 in today’s dollars. In a 1915 Syracuse City Directory business advertisement, Salt City Bottling Company announced it was selling a product called Bludwine, a cherry-flavored soft drink syrup that was made by the Bludwine Bottling Company in Athens, Georgia. Bludwine Bottling Company sold the syrup to soda fountains and bottling companies. The Bludwine Bottling Company promoted its syrup as having health benefits, especially as a digestion aid. Some Georgia physicians prescribed it for their patients. The Bludwine name later changed to Budwine and the company continued to produce the syrup into the 1990s. It is unclear how long Salt City Bottling Company continued to sell Bludwine, as it only appeared one time in the city directory. After the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution — known as the National Prohibition Act — commenced in January 1920, prohibiting the public consumption of alcoholic beverages, Salt City Bottling Company sold soft drinks and permitted alcoholic beverages, promoting them for good health. The company emphasized that two drinks it sold, the Utica Club Pilsener and Brown Stout (both made by the West End Brewery in Utica), possessed beneficial health properties and asserted that these beverages were rich in vitamins, highly nourishing and stimulated one’s appetite. In a 1928 newspaper advertisement, Salt City Bottling Company encouraged its customers to drink Utica Club Pilsener-Wuerzburger twice a day, at the noon and evening meals, and “then watch the ruddy florid complexion” appear on one’s face. In 1921, Salt City Bottling Company began to sell a new soft drink known as Smile, an orange drink that was made by the Orange Smile Syrup Company in St. Louis, Missouri, between 1920 and 1961. In a 1921 Syracuse Herald newspaper advertisement, Salt City Bottling Company encouraged its customers to “take a whole case with you.” The Herald newspaper held its Herald Institute and Food Show in November 1927. The institute and food show featured a cooking school, food products exposition and home institute, all under one roof at 431 South Warren St. in Syracuse, opposite Schrafft’s Restaurant. Numerous food and home businesses had reserved booths at the institute and food show to demonstrate to attendees how to utilize their products to their best advantage. Among the distinguished group of meat, grain, fruit and coffee businesses was Salt City Bottling Company, most likely promoting its soft drinks and healthful alcoholic beverages. On the day of the exhibition, November 14, 1927, the Herald included several ads purchased by exhibition participants. In a brief article that enumerated bottling companies at the exhibition was a remark that a visit to the Salt City Bottling Company booth “would be one of the highlights.” A few days after the exhibition, the Herald published an advertisement in which Salt City Bottling Company endorsed Utica Club beverages as being appropriate “for those who appreciate good things to eat and drink.” In July 1928, Salt City Bottling Company purchased a nearly half-page advertisement to heavily publicize a new drink: Grape Ola. The advertisement trumpeted, “Announcing Grape Ola from Real Grape Juice.” It endorsed Grape Ola as “the finest grape drink you’ve ever tasted!” As with other Salt City Bottling Company advertisements, this ad also emphasized the healthy qualities of its beverages: “Please note carefully that the word ‘imitation’ does not appear anywhere on the Grape Ola bottle or crown. That is because there is nothing imitative about the drink.” The ad also encouraged parents to “let your children drink all the Grape Ola they want – it’s good for them.” Salt City Bottling Company was one of the main distributors of Utica Club beverages in Syracuse. The long list included soft drinks such as root beer and ginger ale, as well as alcoholic beverages such as Champagne Cider, Pilsener, Brown Stout, India Pale, Rock, and Wuerzburger. In February 1934, after the 18th Amendment had been repealed, the West End Brewery in Utica announced that Salt City Bottling Company would be the Onondaga County distributor of its Fort Schuyler Ale and Lager. However, distributing these beverages would be the last business appointment Salt City Bottling Company would receive, as the company closed later that year. The company may have been one of many financial victims of the Great Depression. While the closure seemed sudden, it could have been months in the making. Salt City Bottling Company’s building at 113 West Raynor Ave. in Syracuse is listed as vacant in the 1935 Syracuse City Directory. The building stayed vacant for the next six years until it was razed in late 1941, quite possibly to expand the parking lot for the Sears-Roebuck building, located on the corner of South Salina Street and West Raynor Avenue, which had opened in October 1929. Harry Ayling, Sr., founded Salt City Bottling Company back in 1908. By the time the company closed in 1934, Harry, Sr., was company president; his son, Carl, was company VP; and Harry, Jr., was treasurer. Harry Ayling, Sr., was born in England and migrated to Syracuse as a young man. His first job was working with his uncle in a painting and decorating company in Syracuse. He later opened his own painting and decorating business, and eventually founded Salt City Bottling Company to brew and sell ginger beer. Harry, Sr., died in January 1938 at age 86, four years after Salt City Bottling Company closed. He is buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Warners. His son, Carl, was company VP. After Salt City Bottling Company closed, Carl worked for Smith-Corona Company, from which he retired in 1958. Carl was deaf and married Louisa Brown, who was also deaf. In April 1963, Carl and Louisa celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. According to the Herald newspaper, they were perhaps the first deaf married couple to reach that milestone. When Carl died in 1983, at age 95, he was the oldest alumnus of the New York State School for the Deaf. Carl and Louisa also had been members of the Trinity Episcopal Church Mission to the Deaf for more than 60 years. Like his father and brother, Harry Ayling, Jr., was a life-long resident of Syracuse. Along with being treasurer of Salt City Bottling Company, Harry, Jr., was a member of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Syracuse. He had been ill for a long time and died at his daughter’s house in Camillus in April 1963 at age 83. He is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery in Warners.  

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Thomas Hunter is museum curator at the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA) (www.cnyhistory.org), located at 321 Montgomery St. in Syracuse.