dave ziegler Posted February 6, 2008 Share Posted February 6, 2008 Looking at Pictures taken by someone else and an old Broshure with an aerial Picutre of the Plant I saw something that I never noticed when I worked at Kinsey! Building Q had a fire Observation Room on top of its Fire Escape. I had when I worked the yard gang helped to sweep the stairs down on many of them as dead birds and dust the stairways were only entered by the ground door the roof door or the special door on each floor that went out to a small porch and you would open a door into the tower to get out. bottom floor you could not go in them. They were also Explosion proof and each one like the next except for Building Q which had a room with windows that would open and 3 directions around the Plant and a small tower atop the room. I am going to check this as soon as I can and get some better Pictures and information. This does not surprise me as they even had Fire Hydrants in the woods around the plant! I will tell more after I get a chance to check it out! Every one of the 1892 Wood and Brick Warehouses was sprinkled and had some Heat and they had fire drills once a month near them. I have found Papers from the 1950's about each months drill. Going in Building H of the old ones I found my Dads Nick name on one of the Wood barrel Rails it said Ziggy 1952!Dave Z Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Dave has been kind enough to share some photos from the Kinsey Plant in Limerick Pa. This first group is of the Fire Watch Tower on Building Q. It overlooked the massive complex, somewhere around 300-400 acers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 The first five are of Building Q. Pic 5 are stallagtites forming on the ceiling. The last two are of the weigh and blending room near the steer pins at the back of the property. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 The first two pics are of Building J. Three is a 120 gallon corn whiskey barrel. Four...what is left of one of the steer pins. Five is what remains of the old pump house. Six...the plant was so concerned with safety that it placed fire hydrents, a hundred yards away from the distillieries, in the woods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 These are the last four I have at hand....1. Tele poles leading back to the Kinsey House. 2.&3. The Kinsey House. 4. A case of Embassy Club whiskey restored by Dave Z. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 11, 2008 Share Posted February 11, 2008 Maybe Dave could fill us in on the details and specifics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 11, 2008 Author Share Posted February 11, 2008 I am very Happy to share these Pictures I took this Past Sat and will send more to Jeff to put on soon my computor at home has trouble sizing right so I sent these by way of my work computor to Jeff and he was Kind enough to post them for me! I have Many neat pictures through the years and will be sending ones of the Still, mash tanks which I got from someone who got there before they were tore down and some pictures I took this past Thanksgiving day of the old 1892 Kinsey Bottling House. The fire tower was built on top of the fire escape on Building Q it is the only escape with this, and most amazing in design. It had heating pipes which you can see on the Pictures have little fins to give off heat. On top of the room is another higher small room with two windows also heated. It looks out over the whole plant and this building sits on the highest point of the plant!I took pictures from the roof even though a few years ago Kids must have set fire to some old Corn whiskey barrels on the third floor and the hole in the wall was done by the fire company. After all these years the building is still solid and no parts of the wall have fallen I walked right up to the hole in the wall. The Stalagtites are on the third floor because of the water laying in there from years ago when they put the fire out. The fire watch room has has a small wood table where they kept their Binoculars and stuff. The Heat Valve still turns. It must have gotten so hot up there from the fire the glass in the windows melted onto the sill and the frame buckled but the building is still solid.The Pad pictue and wall are the steer pens of which Kinsey had 10 going down to the Kinsey house. The 120 Gal Corn Whisky barrels are on the second floor of Q Building and dated 1962. The cases of empty bottles are in Building J. Old Hickory Inver Inver House Red Plaid and others sat there for close to 30 years never labeled or filled. The Embassy club box is one of only two that at one time had whiskey in them they were smashed and Broken this one I got for my friend who goes with me as not a place to go by yourself. I restored it and sealed it in Plastic I learned how to do that stuff as a kid working in a old Car museum and now apply it to old Distillery stuff! The weigh building #38 on my Kinsey chart aireal Picture is a blend tank and weigh station at the back of the Plant just before the place the steer Pens were. Two years ago the Phone and Electric wires were still on the poles all the way down to the Kinsey house at the river. One of the Fire Hydrents is over a mile away from the front of the plant out in the woods! They had many Fire Hydrents in the woods all around the plant. In there time Kinsey was one of the safest Distillerys in the world and no one I have ever heard of was hurt bad at Kinsey! My backup Phone is an old Rotory wall phone from Kinsey Building M which I had a friend who worked for ATT & T for 40 years put on the right wires for modern use He said it was a 1940 phone that was rebuilt in 1970 He showed me on it. When people I know call me and I see it on caller ID I answer Kinsey Distillery a Division of Continental Distilling always gets them going!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 The first five are of Building Q. Pic 5 are stallagtites forming on the ceiling. The last two are of the weigh and blending room near the steer pins at the back of the property.This building #38 weigh and blending building had two large tanks inside it and had windows facing Sunrise and fornt ones sunset to help light it well, was al the way at the back of the plant. I have some pictures of the tanks in it which will be posted another time.Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 12, 2008 Author Share Posted February 12, 2008 The first five are of Building Q. Pic 5 are stallagtites forming on the ceiling. The last two are of the weigh and blending room near the steer pins at the back of the property.Picture number two this set is standing on the roof of Building Q looking to the front of the Plant Even though the building has been on fire the roof was fine I walked half way out and I don't like height! The top is also one foot thick Explosion Proof Cement with tar and then small stones. When I started at Kinsey They were having some of the roofs fixed up, they used grain elevators to take stone uo to the top where someone with a wheel barrow would move it where needed on the roof I remember the bundels of tar being lifed up with a chain lift on the steel beams that sitck out on all the roofs! These are the strongest Buildings I have ever seen and were the strongest ones Publicker owned built in 1934 a credit to safety and engineering! Kinsey was through all the Years Publicker exsisted their Show Place even old company broshures state it is a beautiful place.When I walked around the second floor after all these years with no whiskey anywhere you could still smell the Corn whiskey in the air!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 There are two DSP #'s for the Kinsey operation. These pic's are of DSP#10. It was used for their rye distilling, IIRC. Dave will be able to fill in the blanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 The 1966 Bottle House was state of the art in it's day. The largest single floor warehouse for quite some distance. The 1966 BH had had docks and rail loading accross the whole front. Dave can tell the stories since he worked there for a few years. The first pic is a BROCHURE, very usefull for figureing out where all these builings are. Bottom right- is the 1892 complex. Warehouses D and E and the long bottle house. Just to the right of those but not too visible is the Rye still. Next to that...the white building is DSP# 12. Then as you follow around counter clockwise there are grain silos and plant maintenence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 These are pic's of the second floor of the Bottle House. Dave can explain what a Cat and An ion machines are for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 12, 2008 Share Posted February 12, 2008 If you have not guessed it......this place is huge! This set deals with the front gate, a stencil used for DSP# 10 Rye, 2 of the barrel rails heading from the rye still in between 1892 warehouses D and E to the 1892 Bottling House(bottom right of brochure). Next, a very old bulb from the bottling house and last is a sign leading you to the distillery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 13, 2008 Author Share Posted February 13, 2008 Post #10 are all pictures I took last fall of the Kinsey DSP#10 Rye building for some reason the site had two Dsp numbers #!0 for the Rye Building which is what Jacob Kinsey made alot of in the early days and DSP#12 the number of the Still that was there when I worked there and #12 used on all the buildings. They both were Continental's after 1939 when they bought Kinsey. The building goes back to the begining of the place and is really a large Barn and had large tanks. Behind the building out front were a set of Rails to roll the barrels right into the first Barrel warehouses wood & Brick with wood racks. Buildings D & E. 1892. The last Picture if you enlarge it you can clearly see Kinsey Rye in stencil and #10. such a shame the roof is gone but the old wood stair is still in good shape I am trying to get the Limerick Historic Society to ask the owner for it as would be a great thing to preserve as the very first still when Kinsey opened was number ten shown in an old picture of the place in 1892 it sat out in the open with no cover!Continental's DSP was #1 and all the drinking Alcohol was made at DSP#1 in Phila after the mid 1950's. I do not know the exact date but when my Dad worked there in 1950 they made Old Hickory there at DSP #12.The next pictures I sent Jeff will be of the 1892 Kinsey Bottling House which was also behind the #10 building so you could roll the barrels right up to the Bottling house! Most people have no Idea the old Bottle house is even there but I went in there a few times to do cleaning when I was on the yard gang and was amazed at watching the Liqiours being made I will talk about that with the pictures of it! They used the 1892 Kinsey Bottle house right up till 1979 for Liqiuors when they quit the Bussiness and my Bottles of Peanut Liqiuor were done in that neat old Building. I wish I could buy the Place and restore it to the days when it was the most beautiful Distillery in America! And as their old Broshure says It was a beautiful and Peaceful place with lovely Lawns and everything painted and everything kept up even if not used the Way Mr Simon Neuman wanted it!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 13, 2008 Author Share Posted February 13, 2008 These are pic's of the second floor of the Bottle House. Dave can explain what a Cat and An ion machines are for. Post #12 These are pictures I took last Thanksgivng of the Kinsey 1892 Bottling house which was used for Liquiors till the Place closed in 1979. The tanks Cationic which means Positive Charge and Anionic which means Negitive charge were used for the bottling of Liqiuors! The Cationic tank would put a positive Charge on the bottle and the Liquid sugar would fly to the sides of the Bottle then the Negitive would kick in as the bottle filled up it would release as the Liquior would go in till it was full and give a perfect mix of Alcohol and Sugar! The first time I went in we were cleaning and I watched for a bit it was something I have never forgotten. A wand would go in the bottle and the sugar would just fly againest the sides of the bottle then the Liquior would go in and as it did and filled the sugar would drop off and go right in the liquior for a perfect mix! The Light Bulb picture is a Light bulb I got from there it is a GE Edison style bulb and about 100 years old when I worked there many of these 150 watt oldies were still at work! The other pictures are of the second floor of the place note the Green Light cover most of these had the Edison type Bulbs in them! There is also a Picture of the delivery Door! I am very lucky to have many bottles of Peanut lolita which is a peanut Liquior they made and as far as I can find on the web they were the only company to make a Peanut Liquior. It is wonderful and made with Bourbon 53 proof I drink it with beer It will be a sad day when it is all gone It is an amazingly tasty Product.When I went to clean the Kinsey Bottle house they were very excited as they got a large order to make Liquiors for Jacquins and as always we used are Liquior to make it!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 13, 2008 Author Share Posted February 13, 2008 Post #12 These are pictures I took last Thanksgivng of the Kinsey 1892 Bottling house which was used for Liquiors till the Place closed in 1979. The tanks Cationic which means Positive Charge and Anionic which means Negitive charge were used for the bottling of Liqiuors! The Cationic tank would put a positive Charge on the bottle and the Liquid sugar would fly to the sides of the Bottle then the Negitive would kick in as the bottle filled up it would release as the Liquior would go in till it was full and give a perfect mix of Alcohol and Sugar! The first time I went in we were cleaning and I watched for a bit it was something I have never forgotten. A wand would go in the bottle and the sugar would just fly againest the sides of the bottle then the Liquior would go in and as it did and filled the sugar would drop off and go right in the liquior for a perfect mix! The Light Bulb picture is a Light bulb I got from there it is a GE Edison style bulb and about 100 years old when I worked there many of these 150 watt oldies were still at work! The other pictures are of the second floor of the place note the Green Light cover most of these had the Edison type Bulbs in them! There is also a Picture of the delivery Door! I am very lucky to have many bottles of Peanut lolita which is a peanut Liquior they made and as far as I can find on the web they were the only company to make a Peanut Liquior. It is wonderful and made with Bourbon 53 proof I drink it with beer It will be a sad day when it is all gone It is an amazingly tasty Product.When I went to clean the Kinsey Bottle house they were very excited as they got a large order to make Liquiors for Jacquins and as always we used are Liquior to make it!Dave I see the Light bulb is in another post it is very neat and never burned out I got it from an area that had been on fire sadly!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 13, 2008 Author Share Posted February 13, 2008 These are pic's of the second floor of the Bottle House. Dave can explain what a Cat and An ion machines are for. Post #12 These are pictures I took last Thanksgivng of the Kinsey 1892 Bottling house which was used for Liquiors till the Place closed in 1979. The tanks Cationic which means Positive Charge and Anionic which means Negitive charge were used for the bottling of Liqiuors! The Cationic tank would put a positive Charge on the bottle and the Liquid sugar would fly to the sides of the Bottle then the Negitive would kick in as the bottle filled up it would release as the Liquior would go in till it was full and give a perfect mix of Alcohol and Sugar! The first time I went in we were cleaning and I watched for a bit it was something I have never forgotten. A wand would go in the bottle and the sugar would just fly againest the sides of the bottle then the Liquior would go in and as it did and filled the sugar would drop off and go right in the liquior for a perfect mix! The Light Bulb picture is a Light bulb I got from there it is a GE Edison style bulb and about 100 years old when I worked there many of these 150 watt oldies were still at work! The other pictures are of the second floor of the place note the Green Light cover most of these had the Edison type Bulbs in them! There is also a Picture of the delivery Door! I am very lucky to have many bottles of Peanut lolita which is a peanut Liquior they made and as far as I can find on the web they were the only company to make a Peanut Liquior. It is wonderful and made with Bourbon 53 proof I drink it with beer It will be a sad day when it is all gone It is an amazingly tasty Product.When I went to clean the Kinsey Bottle house they were very excited as they got a large order to make Liquiors for Jacquins and as always we used are Liquior to make it!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 13, 2008 Author Share Posted February 13, 2008 The 1966 Bottle House was state of the art in it's day. The largest single floor warehouse for quite some distance. The 1966 BH had had docks and rail loading accross the whole front. Dave can tell the stories since he worked there for a few years. The first pic is a BROCHURE, very usefull for figureing out where all these builings are. Bottom right- is the 1892 complex. Warehouses D and E and the long bottle house. Just to the right of those but not too visible is the Rye still. Next to that...the white building is DSP# 12. Then as you follow around counter clockwise there are grain silos and plant maintenence.Post number 11 is the 1966 Bottling House which opened in 1966 the year I started there. It was building U on the old chart before being made into a state of the art Bottling house that year. The Aerial Picture is from a old Company Broshure when they were trying to save the place by subletting some of it! I found an old Paper saying they thought they had a deal to convert some of the Warehouses to freezers for Osgar Meyer but it fell through and in Spring 1986 the place closed forever. This building is also explosion proof and goes the whole front of the plant. The big Tanks at the back brought the Product in to be bottled and there are lots of tanks inside at the far end also. I went in there one time its a mess now but at that end each line is marked what is coming in with metal wall markers they say Boubon, Whiskey, Gin, Vodka, Rum!The Publicker sign greets you when you come in the front then the guard house and then the Gates that say Linfield Industial Park! The front of the bottling house could do two to three box cars and yet still have trucks loading and unloading to. Every year at about Aug on the Place would have box car after box car getting loaded with Liquoirs for the Holidays. Those days 600 people worked in the plant. Three sifts sometimes in the bottling and always two sifts. The company had its own railroad bridge that came in between the one old Warehouse and the still site! As Jeff has said the Picture shows the old 1892 part of the plant to the far right #12 Still, the Boiler room Maintaince for the Plant Grain silos #10 Rye Building warehouses D&E the old bottling house, and not there anymore now was a small plant office right beside the 1892 Bottle house. The Plant manager was Harold Reinert. When the bottle house was warehouse U it was the worlds largest one floor Barrel warehouse! I worked there for over 5 years and it was a great place to work.Dave Z Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 This next group is all DSP# 12. This building has been torn down for a while. 1. mashtubs 2. malt tank 3. DSP#12 4. same 5. all gone 6.&7. Boilers and Tanks 8. Controll Room 9. What remains looking toward the Grain Silos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 13, 2008 Share Posted February 13, 2008 Here is the next group: 1-4 are of the 1892 group. Grain Silos and Plant Maintenance. 5(they had closed a bottling plant in Phili. to consolidate),6,7,8 &10 are of the 1966 Bottle House and operations vehicles. 9 is of 1892 Warehouse H. 11 & 12 are close-ups of the Silos 13-16 are of the Plant Maintenance facility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mozilla Posted February 15, 2008 Share Posted February 15, 2008 All right....Here is the big boy. The whole enchilada... notice the rail road bridge crossing the river. What river was that Dave? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 15, 2008 Author Share Posted February 15, 2008 All right....Here is the big boy. The whole enchilada...notice the rail road bridge crossing the river. What river was that Dave?Jeff and everyone else it is the Schuylkill River that runs from up state pa all the way to Phila. Kinsey sat on a Penisula on the river in Linfield Pa The Picture comes from a old Broshure that was titled ( The Place With Space Linfield Industrial Park 200 million Sq feet of space! the year was 1985 Spring the next year it Kinsey was abandon!Dave Z! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave ziegler Posted February 16, 2008 Author Share Posted February 16, 2008 There are two DSP #'s for the Kinsey operation. These pic's are of DSP#10. It was used for their rye distilling, IIRC. Dave will be able to fill in the blanks.These are Pictures of DSP #10 Kinsey Rye this is the oldest of the still buildings and was a barn with all the stuff to make Rye Whiskey if you look at my Kinsey Wooden Whiskey case you can see #10 scrached on it in Pencile of some sort. It took me a while till I noticed that on the case on the top says botteld 1909. It was When Kinsey used the Name Angelo Myers why I have no Idea but the man who gave me the case was a geneolist and he searched for a long time and he found the name Angelo Myers Whiskey but that no person of that name exsisted at that time weird. Wish I could ask old J G himself!Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillman Posted February 16, 2008 Share Posted February 16, 2008 How can the tires on that pink truck still be inflated!?One other thing I wonder is that some apparently valuable pieces of equipment (those holding tanks for example, the trucks 20 years ago) must have had some value. When a business is liquidated, normally the equipment is sold, even for salvage it would have had value.Why I wonder would so much of it have remained in place?Also, who owns the site now, is it known?Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillman Posted February 16, 2008 Share Posted February 16, 2008 How can the tires on that pink truck still be inflated!?One other thing I wonder is that some apparently valuable pieces of equipment (those holding tanks for example, the trucks and lift trucks 20 years ago) must have had some value. When a business is liquidated, normally the equipment is sold, even for salvage it would have had value.Why I wonder would so much of it have remained in place?Also, who owns the site now, is it known?Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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