Canada Dry Bottling Co. on Colorado Avenue

May 9, 1957 Lorain Journal ad

Last week I mentioned that Canada Dry was one of the national soda pop brands bottled in Lorain. It was bottled by – what else? – the Canada Dry Bottling Company at 1251 Colorado Avenue (just west of the intersection with Kansas Avenue).

Coca-Cola's sprite boy

The ad above ran in the Lorain Journal on May 9, 1957. The layout with the kid's face peeking out from behind the bottle is vaguely reminiscent of ads featuring the well-known Coca-Cola sprite boy (at left).

But getting back to the Canada Dry ad. I love the look of awe on the kid's face as he eyes the bottle of pop. It's probably because pop was something that kids only got to enjoy occasionally back then. (While I was growing up, we only had pop on weekends – with Yala's Pizza on Friday night, and then maybe a root beer or Pepsi float on Saturday night.)

The ad's also interesting because I didn't know that Canada Dry made anything besides ginger ale and tonic water. By George, they slapped their name on a whole line of soda pop flavors!

Anyway, the Canada Dry Bottling Company first appeared in the City Directory around 1950. It continued at that address until the late 1960s. Edwards Garage and Towing took over the address around 1969 or so.

In the 1985 book, the towing company was joined by The Corner Store model railroad store (run by Jim Edwards) at 1249 Colorado. Then in the 1986 book the Edwards towing company disappeared and the model railroad store lasted until Jim Edwards passed away.

Here is the building at 1249 Colorado today (below).

I suspect that the Canada Dry Bottling Company was located there as well. Jim Edwards owned and operated both the towing business (which took over the bottling company address) and the model train company according to his obituary. Plus, the model train store sign was made out of an old Canada Dry sign (which is laying against the building in the above photo).

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UPDATE (Dec. 14, 2017)
Be sure to visit this new post about Canada Dry and the bottling plant on Colorado Avenue!