Bromine – Union Salt Works – Gorgeous Allegheny City Bottle
07 January 2012
Sitting on one of my bottle shelves is this gorgeous Bromine – Union Salt Works bottle from old Allegheny City (today part of Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania. Not knowing too much, I purchased the bottle from a Glass Works Auction in 2004 because of the color, embossing and stopper which was consider original. Since then, I haven’t seen too many of these (actually none) and wonder if they come in any other colors? Truly a magnificent bottle.
Bromine – Union Salt Works – Meyer Collection
BROMINE / 6 1/2 POUNDS NET / MANUFACTURED BY / HALLER BECK & CO / UNION SALT WORKS / ALLEGHENY CITY, PA, Teal Blue, Circa 1885 – 1895, American, 9 1/2″h, smooth base, tooled mouth, original glass stopper. A seldom offered bottle from Allegheny City, (today part of Pittsburgh), must be considered rare with the addition of the original stopper. Glass Works Auction 68, March 2004
Allegheny City Map – circa 1872
Allegheny City Hall
Allegheny City (1788–1907) was a Pennsylvania municipality located on the north side of the junction of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, across from downtown Pittsburgh
Allegheny City
[from Wikipedia] Allegheny City (1788–1907) was a Pennsylvania municipality located on the north side of the junction of the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, across from downtown Pittsburgh. It was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. The area today is known as the North Side of Pittsburgh, and its waterfront district, along the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers, as the North Shore.
Prior to the 1850s, this area was largely farmland, but was subdivided into residential lots, first for the growing German population and later for the Croats. It was commonly referred to as “Deutschtown”.
Old Allegheny City
A massive urban redevelopment project in the 1960s demolished the core of historic Allegheny City, leaving only the Commons of Allegheny Center and its surrounding neighborhoods to evoke the area’s past. The Carnegie Library, the Old Post Office Building, and the Buhl Planetarium buildings were not demolished. Major portions of the neighborhoods of Allegheny West, Manchester, Central Northside, California-Kirkbride (Old Allegheny Rows), and East Allegheny are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including the Mexican War Streets in Central Northside.
The Salt Trade
[from The History of Allegheny Co., Pennsylvania By L. H. Everts]
Salt, as everybody knows, is a very essential commodity and bears about the same relation to human existence as iron does to commerce, as compared with more costly articles of everyday use. In and around Pittsburgh, it is obtained in abundance and of excellent quality, in aqueous form, from wells or springs in the midst of coal, oil and gas. It has been a common thing of late years for parties boring for oil or gas to strike salt-springs, and vice versa. The first discovery of a salt-spring in Pennsylvania occurred in 1816, at or near the town of Saltzburg, Indian County: a Colonel Johnson, from Philadelphia, being the discover.
Today the produce is immense, the largest works hereabouts devoted exclusively to its being probably those Messrs. Haller, Beck & Co. of Allegheny City and South Pittsburgh known as the Union Salt Works
Today the produce is immense, the largest works hereabouts devoted exclusively to its being probably those Messrs. Haller, Beck & Co. of Allegheny City and South Pittsburgh known as the Union Salt Works which yield about three hundred barrels a day, or about nine thousand barrels or twelve thousand tons a year. The works are finely arranged, the well being a flowing one, but a large steam-pump is also used, in order to increase the capacity of the establishment. Mr. A. Haller is the founder of this establishment, or, at all events, the originator of the present concern, and gives his attention to the operation of the works, while Mr. Beck attends to the business.
