A trip in to the Old Continental Bottle house 1966 State of the Art

[dave ziegler]

Here are a couple of Pictures of the 1966 Bottling House without the weeds and snow, plus some pictures of Warehouse H from both sides and a shot looking down along the 1966 Bottle house from the back far side of warehouse H.
1.,2.,1966 Bottling house from Dock which could handle 3 box cars and about ten trailer trucks at the same time. 2 foot ball fields long, 1/2 a foot ball field wide.

3.,4.,Back side of Warehouse H looking at Bottle House, and back side of warehouse H this is the warehouse pictured in the Old Aerial shot I posted from 1936 and was the last wood and brick warehouse ever built by Jacob G Kinsey.
5. standing beside Warehouse H at the back looking toward the back side of the 1966 bottling house and the 3 explosion proof warehouses on the right behind the bottle house. My fathers nickname is written on one of the Old wooden racks in H building says Ziggy was here 1952.

Everytime I go to Kinsey I get feeling so sad at what has happen to it but life is this way and so you just have to remember what a great place it was.
I will be posting some Pictues of the rods for the warehouses never built on the memories thread later today.


Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

This past Sunday after all the rain I got to go in the 1966 Bottling house and it is very sad how much water leaks into it. Here are a eight Pictures I took in there.
They are mostly pictures looking in differant directions of the Bottle house and there are two of the Old safety sign both sides and the last shot is of the point where the Old A-1-F computerised Line came out to shipping. This line could do 40,000 bottles a day and even put the bottles in the cases! It is veryhard for me seeing the Bottle house like this.

When it opened in Sept 1966 it was the worlds largest Spirits bottling house and the most modern one in the world! People would come from far away to tour it, and now it sits and rots, how sad life can be.

It is for its memory that I continue to write about Kinsey and my happy days there. Now when It rains it rains inside the Building what a sad thing it is and I feel the rain in my heart.
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most Magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

So little is left of what was once the worlds Largest Bottling house and also the worlds most modern one. Water leaks in everywhere and Vandels have destroyed as much as they can yet I still love the old place.
Here is a picture of a bundle of Skol Gin Labels I got years ago one of the many products that flowed out of the 1966 bottling house. Also a picture of one of the many explosion proof hookups typical for charging the Raymond fork lifts we used.

Note the Labels were made in KY!

Everytime I see it in ruin it breaks my heart but I continue to try and write and put pictures in here whenever I get the chance not very offten any more.

During the years 1966 through early 1979 about 500 people worked in this 2 football field long bottling house. I have a new project now I am going when I can to the local Pottstown Library to look at micro flim to get all the write ups the Pottstown Paper has had about Kinsey when I get them I will post them~
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most magnificent Bourbon

[dave ziegler]

Here are some more pictures I took yesterday at Kinsey. And even after all these years it still seems hard to believe this is the way it looks.

When I left Kinsey in late 1971 in my wildest dreams I never would have thought this could happen to her.

Also most of the people are gone so I have to keep working away at finding out all I can

1. One of the very last signs left at Kinsey R warehouse
2. Looking from the front down toward Warehouse M.
3. Flagin is what Ludy calls this stuff that goes between barrel staves and parts of the heads only if they leak. Ludy said new they did not put anything beween them but if they leaked the Cooper would have to dump all the spirits in the trough pump it into a tank then take the barrel apart fix it by putting this flagin in and refill the barrel all over with the dumped whisky. Ludy said he thinks the strips were made of Bam Boo.
Dave Z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most magnificent bourbon

[dave ziegler]

The sadest of things is what has happen to the 1966 Bottling house at Kinsey. From being the worlds largest and most modern it has fallen on such bad times it is hard for me to believe!

It rains inside snows inside and lights just fall off cealing. Everything is rotting there is no way to bring power in as vandels have cut every wire they can get their hands on and the Man who ownes Kinsey just lets it rot.

In fall 1986 He just told Philadelphia Electric cut the power walked away and left it to rot and to this day I have been told he thinks the place could be reopened easy! He just does not get what he has done and it kills me seeing it like it is.

I can not see anyway anything there will ever be used again but I don't want to think of the day someone would go there just to knock stuff down. The Old Days can never come back but I can from memory tell you of them and they were as the song says
( Those Were The Days my Friend We Thought Theyed Never End )

Those days 600 people had a great Job at Kinsey and 500 of them worked on two shifts in the bottle house, if you could only see the Box cars full of great whiskey's rolling out during the days before Thanksgiving and Christmas.

There were two rail lines coming in Kinsey then, the Pennsy and the Reading one came in over the river right side facing the plant by our Company owned Bridge, and one came in by the front side of the game lands. on the left side facing the plant from the road, both could serve the Bottle house and there was room for about 3 box cars and many trucks also.

We would get so busy one of the jobs that would happen for the yard gang would be the taking of broken cases of bottles to the dump. Those 11 Lines just kept on pumping out Spirits! And Line A-1-F cranked out 40,000 bottles a day by itself.

Dave Z
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The Best Old Fashioneds Are,
You'll Find
The Mellow Made With Kinsey Kind!

[dave ziegler]

Well this past Sunday I got a chance to walk around in the 1966 Bottling house again and take some pictures of what is left of it. Here are a few.
Pictures are
1.The starting point of the old bottling lines. One of 11 Lines
2.,3. Tank Platform
4. Start of Old Line A-1-F Line which was a early coputer operated line that could do 40,000 bottles a day and even box them!
5. Look across from one side to the other
6. Shot above

I took 36 pictures so I will be posting more soon. It is sad how bad the place has gotten the vandels are destroying everything they can.

I also got some shots in the sealed room they made Antifreeze bottles in on my trip in and spent about 3 hours in the plant just looking around and remembering. What good days those were.
Dave Z
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Kinsey The Unhurried Whiskey For Unhurried Moments

[dave ziegler]

I am once again very fortune enough to have a friend I met about 3 weeks ago on line that has some Publicker Pictures he has sent me. And here are a couple of very cool ones.
1 Publicker rail tankers of the type that brought Whiskey to Kinsey when I worked there.
2. Writeup about the staff of The Publicker with office address Walnut Street, and staff of Eddington Laboratory in Eddington,Pa
3. Gasahol Distillation Colume from Dupont
4. talks about Publicker being gone and Holts Cargo being there
5.through 8. are of the 2 Gasahol distilliation colume's that Publicker bought in 1976 from Dupont to be put on the AA Acetic Acid Plant right next to the Walt Witman Bridge pictures show the colume laying there and its progress going up.

How I remember the Old tankers with the Name Publicker coming into the plant I was so dam proud to work for a great Company like Publicker at my age. Most people I went to school with ended up on horrible jobs to start out but I was lucky enough to start at Kinsey at Age 19.
Dave z
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It Seems All The Nicest People Drink Old Hickory
America's Most magnificent Bourbon

[unclebunk]

Loved the pictures. Thanks, Dave!

[dave ziegler]

Here are a couple of shots I took in the plant on Sunday
1. Wood and brick warehouse H this was the last warehouse built by Jacob G Kinsey in 1936 and it is pictured in the 1936 Aerial Photo being built.
2. looking up from the back of the 1966 Bottling house at the back Of O building the government Building and warehouse.
3. An old time Sub station with big power meter on it. it was here vandels lifted a 400 pound manhole cover and crawed down in to get wires..
4. Looking down from O building at warehouses front stairwells starting from there on left, P,N,R
5. looking down from O Building right side warehouses, C,I,M back side fire escapes
6. The one of a kind Fire escape on warehouse O because of its multipul uses including being the Government Building. 12 of the 14 warehouses had the exact same type fire escapes O & Q had differant ones each Q having the Fire Observation room. Also O was the only one with its front stairwell being differant from the other 13 of them.

It was a cool and nice walk Sunday with breezes from the river like in days of Old and I always hate leaving Kinsey.
Dave Z
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Kinsey The Unhurried Whisky For Unhurried Moments

[dave ziegler]

Sunday I took a walk in the cool breezes at Kinsey and remembered the good old days of the place. The bottle house was the one thing that made Kinsey the amazing Place it became all the 13 years it operated bottling spirits.

In Sept 1966 it was because the Bottle House opened that I got my job at Kinsey. Altogether there were 600 people working there in 1966 500 + in the bottle house.

Kinsey was a show place with the flower beds I worked on in the yard gang and the dandylion free Lawns. We had the most modern bottling house in all the world there in 1966 and the worlds largest one. In the next few days I am going to dig out more vintage paper work I have saved from the plant and post it.

I remember well are teams in the warehouse when on dumping duty. Some would pull numbered the lots of Barrels and others would dump them, and if there was no dump trough they would be hauled on the 1941 Ford flat trucks to warehouses with troughs where they would be dumped by another gang that would unload them and dump them.

The Old trucks could only haul about 8 to 10 barrels a load and would be flying back and forth getting barrels,in my mind I can still hear the old Flat head Ford motors roaring. We would roll them on against each other then put a block of wood to hold them. I can on!y remember one time any fell off and amazingly it did not break!

Rolling the barrels was hard work with being bent over and the best job was in the racks rolling them out. That was my favorite, or of course driving one of the old ford trucks.

It seems like yesterday and yet times are so differant today I would imagine people would not even want that type of job. But We loved it and we made Darn good money working there with good boss's and great benifits too!
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The Best Old Fashions are, You'll Find
The Mellow made With Kinsey Kind!

Moto from my old Kinsey drink mix book 1950's

Dave Z