Tinley Park Bottling Works
Established 1889-56 Years Ago
In the year of 1889 Mr. Herman Stoeckmann of Tinley Park, known as Bremen then, started a soda water bottling plant here. Mr. Stoeckmann continued this business for six years, then sold it in the year of 1895 to Mr. Phillip Mager.

Mr. Mager moved the equipment to a new building on the rear of the lot where his home was located at 6724 North Street in Tinley Park. He kept the business for 6 years and then sold it to Fred Wilke in 1901.

Mr. Wilke moved the equipment into the basement of the James Fulton residence, which at the time was owned by Mrs. Marie Bettenhausen, mother of Mrs. Fulton.

Mr. Wilke continued with the soda water business at this address 6811 South Street with the help of his daughters for a little over two years.

Then in the year of 1903 he sold it to Fred Blume, a young man living with folks just a few miles south of Tinley Park. Mr. Blume kept the business until September 26, 1905 when he sold it to Mr. Carl Goebel, who was born and raised in Tinley Park, but had moved to another locality for a few years.

Mr. Goebel purchased six acres of land at 175th Street and Oak Park Avenue and continued the soda water bottling plant at that location, with the help of his sons Fred, August and Henry.

At that time Mr. Goebel put up a new building for the plant and enlarged it again in 1913. The bottling plant is still located in this building.

Mr. Carl Goebel and son Fred remained in the business thirty-four years when upon the death of Carl, it was continued for three years with Mary Goebel, wife of Carl Goebel and her two sons Fred and Henry.

In 1943 Fred sold out to his brother Henry who operates the plant now. The bottling plant has been in the Goebel family for forty years.

Forty years ago the bottles had spring stoppers, in 1910 they changed over to crown caps, which meant the installation of new machinery.

The new style bottles that are now being used are with labels that come burned right into the bottles, red and yellow which do not come off when the bottles are washed.

Many improvements have been made in the forty years from traveling on mud roads, then gravel, and then concrete; from wagons to trucks; from washing the bottles by hand to washing and sterilizing by machinery. From spring stopper to crown caps; from mixing sugar syrup by weighing the sugar to using filter and testing syrup with an instrument.

All of these improvements occurred in the span of a lifetime.

Source: Tinley Park Public Library


**My Notes: The above article was written in about 1945. Since then, the plant has closed, for reasons unknown to me at this time. The building was torn down and the equipment was sold.
**November 17, 2000