Featured Soda--RARE Chicago Knickerbocker for the April FPS

S. Smith was a prolific New York bottler, responsible for many of the sided "Knickerbocker" sodas from Auburn, as well as several marked NYC sodas. Even the term "Knickerbocker" has long since been associated with the city of New York. Here we have yet another example of a bottler opening a branch "out west" or at least as far west as Chicago, which by the standards of the 1840's might as well have been a different country. This rare Chicago "Knickerbocker" may have been Smith's attempt to bring a little of New York to the windy city. APS record #1638 courtesy of Chicago collector Paul Welko, this is probably the only Chicago bottle embossed "Knickerbocker" and is very rare. It definately establishes Smith's distribution reach into the midwest and provides yet another example of a successful bottler's expansion into new markets well before the Civil War.